aggressive pricing

[Anonymous]

This is a crucial moment for Graphisoft to win new clients. Autodesk in on the aggressive to keep old clients. Revit-9 is hitting the market with an aggressive price plan. If you have an old autocad, you can upgrade for under 1500$ and get both Revit-9 and a full autocad 2007. People wishing to leave autocad for archicad will have hard time, as archicad 10 is priced 4250$. I recommend GS to revise its prices, be aggressive and advertising. I noted that most resellers, including GS itself, do not list the price in their websites, thus forcing people to ring. This is an old-fashioned approach that has long lost ground. The prices must be upfront, and must be competitive. We are about to close the evaluation period, and thus will decide on the revit-vs-archicad knowing that we already have autocad...

I shall wait for Graphisoft's new prices until October 15, and draw the line.

[TomWaltz]

Are AutoCad's and Revit's prices listed somewhere? I have only seen LT listed online.

[Anonymous]

Tom,

just google for "autocad 2007 price" and will have plenty of it. Further, if you look at autodesk's website, there is a 60% off offer for upgrading. Some sites are already selling the upgrade under 1400$; depending on which version you have, you can get the upgrade for 1100$.

[Link]

Just what do you get for these prices, from AutoDesk? Do you actually get to own the software? Are you able to sell it, or is it effectively just a lease?

Cheers,
Link.

[Richard Morrison]

I believe this is for a "legacy" upgrade, and I also believe you need to purchase a subscription package to get the deepest discounts. Autodesk ended license transfers long ago (during R14), so all you really get is the right to use the software. And (at least) with Revit, if you don't keep up with your subscriptions, after a couple of years you lose the right to upgrade altogether and have to buy a new license all over again if you want to upgrade. One more reason to dislike Autodesk.

By the way, I recently read that Autodesk has ended phone support for Revit. A lot of disenchantment over on the AUGI Revit forums.

[Anonymous]

I have the latest on the costs. If you have one licence for AutoCAD LT 2004, for example, you can upgrade the licence to Revit-9 for 1600$+VAT. There is a compulsory service of 700$ for one year of upgrades, phone service and online documentations. This offer is valid for a few weeks only. The full retail price is around 6000$. If you have a more recent version of AutoCAD LT, say 2006, then you can upgrade for about 1100$+VAT+700$. Further, if you have one license of ArchiCAD, for example, and want to drop it in favour of Revit-9, you have a 40% discount on the retail price, that is about 3600$, which is less than ArchiCAD's own retail price for a new license.

I am not aware of any similar offer from Graphisoft. If, for example, you want to drop AutoCAD in favour of ArchiCAD, are there any discounts?

PS. Let me add that passing from one application to another is not trivial, as licences do not come cheaply and each application has its own philosophy and idiosyncrasies. Aggressive offers to win new clients with relatively old applications is strategic. For a smooth transition, it is important that ArchiCAD is as open as possible on file standards. I also observe that Revit now includes a sketching tool very similar to SketchUP, which gives a competitive advantage over ArchiCAD. Revit's 3D-2D interaction between drawings is also on edge. Graphisoft should make a move. Too bad they did not purchase SketchUP instead of Google.

>Do you actually get to own the software?

When you purchase one license, you never own the software. You own the legal right to run the software on one machine at the time. The software is still owned by the maker.

>By the way, I recently read that Autodesk has ended phone support for Revit. A lot of disenchantment over on the AUGI Revit forums.

They added a 700$/year fee for phone support, updates, and online documentations.

>And (at least) with Revit, if you don't keep up with your subscriptions, after a couple of years you lose the right to upgrade altogether and have to buy a new license all over again if you want to upgrade.

Yes, this is their policy on upgrades.

[Richard Morrison]

jdk wrote:
>By the way, I recently read that Autodesk has ended phone support for Revit. A lot of disenchantment over on the AUGI Revit forums.

They added a 700$/year fee for phone support, updates, and online documentations.

That $700 subscription fee no longer will no longer include the phone support. It only includes e-mail support, updates, and the other stuff. Here's an excerpt from the Autodesk letter that was posted on the AUGI forum:

We do realize that any changes to Autodesk services can have an impact on your organization and want to give you as much advance notice as possible that at the time of your next contract renewal, phone support from Autodesk for Autodesk® AutoCAD® Revit® Products will no longer be included as part of your subscription. Please ensure that all users of phone support in your organization are aware of this change. At the time of your next contract renewal you will be entitled to all standard subscription benefits that are available at the time. Our current subscription offering includes benefits such as web support and e-Learning.

[Anonymous]

Richard, I was told about the phone service by Autodesk itself. You have counterevidence too. This means that Autodesk is a bit confused, and confusing, on this matter.

[TomWaltz]

jdk wrote:
Richard, I was told about the phone service by Autodesk itself. You have counterevidence too. This means that Autodesk is a bit confused, and confusing, on this matter.

who at Autodesk? Marketing, sales, tech support, a programmer the secretary, the janitor, the parking attendant, the lawn crew.... it's a big company. Who tells you matters. The person telling you that may not be aware of policy changes expected in the coming months.

[Scott Davis]

TomWaltz wrote:

jdk wrote:
Richard, I was told about the phone service by Autodesk itself. You have counterevidence too. This means that Autodesk is a bit confused, and confusing, on this matter.

who at Autodesk? Marketing, sales, tech support, a programmer the secretary, the janitor, the parking attendant, the lawn crew.... it's a big company. Who tells you matters. The person telling you that may not be aware of policy changes expected in the coming months.

I have not picked up the phone to create a support request in at least a couple of years. You could, up until this announcement, call a phone number and create a request. Most of the time, this meant you left your name and number and your problem, and a technician called you back. The "new" way of creating support requests is to go from within Revit, under the Help menu, and select "Create Support Request" which launches a web page, pulls up all of your information, allows you to document your problem, AND attach files to send to support if necessary. Then, the Revit Support team can diagnose your problem, and typically will call you back (they already have your number on file) and either help you fix your problem or support you in any way possible. Sometimes this is through email, sometimes with a phone call.

To say "phone support" has been "eliminated" is quite the fallacy. The mechanism for filing requests have changed from phone based to web based, but the web based is MUCH better and in the end, the Support staff WILL call and talk to you live.

Imagine trying to disseminate all the phone calls coming in from over 100,000 users (growing at 15,000 every fiscal quarter) and trying to organize and prioritize the information to provide support. Web-based support automatically enters all the data into a database, and simplifies and speeds up the process of support.

Autodesk has over 7 million users of their software....providing a web-based solution to initiating support requests across all of their software solutions has become the norm. The old "phone-based" system is a carry-over from the Revit Technology days from before the aquisition, when the number of Revit users was much less.