Viz 2005 releases today...

[GuyR]

Aaron,

I wouldn't put anything past Adsk. I know several developers there. The company has killed some very good products before

Yeah, but had they paid 133 million for them? That's a big write off.

ADT is "selling" well. We all know that everyone is really using Acad

ADT is good for resellers. They have an API, it's a pig to use so people need lots of training, etc. The big problem IMO is the reseller model of selling/supporting is wrong for Revit. You need companies/personal who understand architecture/ 3D design, the effect Revit has on your 'process' and who are proactively researching the role of BIM for their local markets. These people need higher level access to development than they get currently through the reseller system and they should be making more margin because of it.

When Autodesk showed Revit to all their resellers those that said 'this is the future' should have got exclusive reseller rights. How Solidworks/ ArchiCAD is sold is a much better way for software like Revit. Inventor 'sold' more seats last year than Solidworks but Solidworks made considerably more profit on those slightly lower sales. What doesn that tell you?

Some of the discreet guys re-wrote the whole code from scratch on their own time - I heard - using .Net and it is 5x faster. They render on networked Sony Playstations!

Doesn't really make sense does it? .Net is primarily about web services and it only runs on windows unless you use Mono etc. The C# language isn't as fast as compiled code. If it's 5 times faster it's not because it runs on .Net (assuming my understanding of .Net is correct). I really hope Revit doesn't go down the .Net route.

Revit has a small user base. We all know it is better, but Carol doesn't care about that. Just sales numbers.

I reckon Autodesk aren't going to get really serious about pushing Revit until there is MEP and some sort of API. Until the large firms using ADT for these tasks have a migration path they're not going to move. Remember Autodesk purchased Revit for the push into large firms.

The ADT developers hate Revit. They say "the code isn't clean, they have a bad object model." However, ADT is buggy sh*t. Revit just plain works.

How would you feel if your boss went out and purchased another architects design because your work wasn't good enough? You'd have to imagine there's a fair bit of internal friction between the Autodesk/Revit development teams at the moment.

Looking at ADT, Arch. Studio, DWF you'd have to wonder if Autodesk have a cultural problem developing user friendly programs inhouse.Excluding Revit, perhaps they're destined to always be a purchaser of innovation rather than a developer of innovation? Watch out Sketchup....

ADSK is a classic "bad" American company. They suck, but the stock price looks good.

I for one, wish Revit had gone it alone....

You can't change the past, and the architectural professions lack of interest in Revit when it was Revit speaks volumes. Look how many people are only using Revit now because it's sold by Autodesk.
I'd still like to know why Dassault didn't want to support them more, particularly given their deal with Gehry Technologies and the obvious synergies with Solidworks/CATIA.
Mind you, with Revit's approach to marketing at the time some of us wondered if it wasn't always Revit's plan to be purchased by Autodesk....

Guy

[hand471037]

ATD is good for resellers

I wouldn't be so quick on that one. I just started working for a reseller here in San Francisco that is really excited about Revit, because it means that we can do three things: Sell people a product that really meets thier needs (meaning it's easyer to sell), Sell to a lot more people than just the CAD manager types (meaning much more oppertunity for us), and Sell something that's easyer for us to support and train people on (meaning more success stories and happy customers to use as references).

So I think that, maybe in the short term some Reseller's myopic focus on ADT might be good for them, but disasterous down the road. For every time I do a Revit demo now, where thier ADT obssesed CAD Manager might be stonewalling thier Principal is listening and looking at the bottom line and watching me in the demo produce more complex work in minutes then they can do in a day with ADT... well...