subscription service to start in US this summer

[Erika Epstein]

I went to hear Donald R. Henrich II, V.P. and general manager of Graphisoft North America Last night.
Among other things, he mentioned that starting this summer in the US

- they will now offer a subscription service for $695 per annum which bundles in many of the new and upcoming additional feature like cinema 4D, etabs, IES, etc. ... something about your choice of 6 or 7 of the 10 products...

-For those customers who prefer to keep doing business with Graphisoft as they have been they can continue to purchase AC upgrades only when they come out (AC10 due next February)

- they will not make the mistake of autodesk where they will discontinue support and/or make licenses illegal if you don't upgrade

-emphasized the impact of contractors around the world (as did Gallelo a few months ago) who are using AC creating models for construction estimating and cost-related scheduling on the development of archicad. This has been in my opinion tremendously beneficial for all AC users bringing us more add-ons and features we have long wanted. I'm looking forward to them becoming cost-effective to use for mid and smaller size firms.

Anybody know more about this?

Heard that subscriptions have started already in the UK; anyone care to comment?
cachink

[Scott Davis]

Erika wrote:
- they will not make the mistake of autodesk where they will discontinue support and/or make licenses illegal if you don't upgrade

Autodesk licenses are never illegal if you don't upgrade. You buy it, it's your's for life.

Does Graphisoft still provide support for ArchiCAD 1.0?

[Erika Epstein]

wonder what he meant then. that was from my notes; not that I am perfect.
I think he was trying make the point that Graphisoft would not make whatever mistakes they perceive autocad had.
hmm.

Scott, he'll be talking in Orange county next week, maybe you could go and get a clarification.

[__archiben]

Erika wrote:
Heard that subscriptions have started already in the UK; anyone care to comment?

far easier to sell to the directors as they had a concrete figure to put in the budget for IT every year.

cachink

oh yeah!

~/archiben

[Scott Davis]

Erika wrote:
Scott, he'll be talking in Orange county next week, maybe you could go and get a clarification.

Where? What time? I'm always up for hearing what others are doing!

I'll let you know when Phil Bernstein will be around...if anyone (regardless of software choice) has the change to see Phil speak, it's well worth it. He speaks about the future of our profession, and it's very enlightening!

[Anonymous]

Erika Eptein


Can you describe these new and upcoming additional features? "cinema 4D, etabs, IES, etc..."

ACX next Feb.? I hope it's really good!

Thanks

[Erika Epstein]

Isn't he speaking at Digital Vision next week?

The other programs do modeling program, cost estimating, things like that. I was hoping someone here knew more.

[Djordje]

Scott wrote:
Autodesk licenses are never illegal if you don't upgrade. You buy it, it's your's for life.

Try upgrading AutoCAD 12, or, for that matter, 14, to 2005 or now 2006.

Scott wrote:
Does Graphisoft still provide support for ArchiCAD 1.0?

AFAIK you can upgrade to 9 ... I definitely know of a few recent cases of ArchiCAD 5 to 9 upgrade - just to enlighten you, it is 8 years' span.

ArchiCAD users are not forced to upgrade, Scott. They want to or don't want to. But, they can. Always. That is the point.

[Scott Davis]

But the position that Autodesk's policy is out of the norm in the software industry is wrong. I can't upgrade my Win 3.1 to Win XP. I can't upgrade my Apple Basic OS to OSX. I can't Upgrade my Photoshop 1 to Photoshop 7.

At some point in time, there is a cut off. You bought the software years ago, and used it until it was actually detrimental to workflow to continue using it. So then you go out and buy a new version. At a point, it's beyond an upgrade...just buy it!

Same with AutoCAD 12. If you are on AutoCAD 12 and never upgraded, and now want AutoCAD 2006, go buy it! If not, continue to use AutoCAD 12 if you can still run it on your machine.

Autodesk users are not forced to upgrade either. I could stay on Revit 7.0 for 20 years if I could keep it running on a computer. If 20 years from now, I want to look into Revit 2025, I'm going to be paying full price.

So back to my question...if I were still using ArchiCAD 1.0, and had a question..who would I call?

[TomWaltz]

So back to my question...if I were still using ArchiCAD 1.0, and had a question..who would I call?

Your local dealer.