Revit - Worldwide??

[mibzim]

Its hard to get a sense of just how big revit is at the moment, so i thought i would put the question out there and find out.

I know the US base i pretty big, aussie is growing fast, and there are some users in South Africa. I havent heard much about the european market or south american yet though, and not a peep from asia. I guess partly due to language barriers??? There's a thought - a Chinese version of revit!!? - they are the fastest developeing nation in the world at the moment you know.

Maybe management could give us an idea of numbers (maybe thats top secret tho?), but it would be great to get a sense of the attitudes towards revit in different countries, the numbers of firms and people that know about it and use it, as well as what consultants / bosses / etc think of it.

So, how big is revit??

[Wes Macaulay]

I've been told that the Chinese version of Revit is selling like hotcakes in the People's Republic...

[beegee]

Aust NZ is a big market..

Asia is HUGE.

SA is doing well.

Don't know much about the European market.

UK is reasonable.

Obviously you're not going to get numbers quoted..... :wink:

[GuyR]

Asia is HUGE.

Yep, and they really want a Linux version so I'm told.

Guy

[Elmo]

It's Doing really well here in South Africa we are trying to keep up with the demand for it here.

[Marek Brandstatter]

Don't know much about the European market.My understanding is that Europe is slow.

[Lashers]

I'm probably wrong, but I suspect that all the big guns (outside of Autodesk) have been working against AutoCAD in the Eu for many years, and also some of the strong "pretenders" to Revit are EU developed . . . not the fresh young market! So I kind of expect slower take up, but it is happening!

Eg: The practice I left last year has 2 copies of Revit V5 sitting in their office doing bugger all! They do alot of Developer housing!!! Can't make any money because of bad coordination!!! Yet, will not train anyone to use Revit . . . AutoCAD is safe . . . hmmm now, why was it i left . . . .

[Andrew Dobson]

I was told about 9 months ago that there are 10,000 Revit users worldwide and 2000 in the UK.

That doesnt seem very many to me

[LRaiz]

As I recall during the last quarter conference call with Wall Street analysts Carol Bartz stated that in this quarter Autodesk sold 8000 Revit seats.

[Wes Macaulay]

Eight thousand in a quarter... that's progress. Wonder where they originated from: cross-grades, upgrades, or new licenses?

[hand471037]

I was told about 9 months ago that there are 10,000 Revit users worldwide and 2000 in the UK.

By whom? The number I've heard is much larger than that.

[Andrew Dobson]

By a revit dealer here in the UK

[hand471037]

By a revit dealer here in the UK

Maybe they need to check back in with Autodesk.

Well, actually, I think Autodesk gets real upset when you share the 'real' number of users. So I'd ask that Revit dealer where they got their number from. The number I've heard is several times larger than the one you've stated, and I've also heard that this number is more than doubling every year... for what it's worth.

[MikeJarosz]

My understanding is that Europe is slow.

What do you expect with a system that uses feet and inches, with no other way to convert except to change the size of the data?

[GuyR]

What do you expect with a system that uses feet and inches, with no other way to convert except to change the size of the data?

??????????

[Shaun v Rooyen]

What do you expect with a system that uses feet and inches, with no other way to convert except to change the size of the data?

Huh?
Sorry, Mike I must have a special Revit then. Seems to use the rest of the worlds, metric system. Maybe just misunderstand your post.

[Wesley]

Sorry, but there's no way that 10,000 is accurate. That would put 50% of users in Oz.
Wes

[jpolding]

Yep, and they really want a Linux version so I'm told.

Guy
I don't know too much about Linux but I've heard that it makes better use of RAM than Windows(3GB/action). It seems that more RAM usage would speed up some of the really big models. I know Revit for Linux will never happen but we need to rise above this hardware plateau somehow.

[hand471037]

I don't know too much about Linux but I've heard that it makes better use of RAM than Windows(3GB/action). It seems that more RAM usage would speed up some of the really big models. I know Revit for Linux will never happen but we need to rise above this hardware plateau somehow.

Linux get released more often, and also tends to be used for a lot of 'heavy lifting' (servers, data centers, and the like) so it tends to support the latest and greatest sooner than Windows.

For example, a dual-core dual-processor 64-bit system with 4 gigs of Ram, which you can go and buy today, is only somewhat supported by Windows XP 64, but could be fully utilized by Linux.

Also you can turn off whatever it is that you're not using within Linux, saving a lot of overhead.

But as for 'better' in regards to memory management itself, I don't know enough about it to know if that's the case.

[MikeJarosz]

??????????

Sorry, I didn't make it clear, I was referring to Acad, not Revit.....

[GuyR]

Sorry, I didn't make it clear, I was referring to Acad, not Revit.....


That's alright, I only wanted to type one ? but you have to post a miniumum of 10 characters;-)


I don't know too much about Linux but I've heard that it makes better use of RAM than Windows(3GB/action).

Yes it does and it also multitasks much more nicely than windows. Apart from the obvious 'it's not windows and it's free' the reason Asian countries are really keen on Linux and it's applications is the strong support for unicode and therefore Asian languages.


It seems that more RAM usage would speed up some of the really big models.
The biggest hardware issue Revit has is making it multithreaded. CPU manufacturers have stated the future is multicore systems. So if Revit is going to scale with new hardware it needs to run on more than one core. No easy task.

Guy

[hand471037]

Yes it does and it also multitasks much more nicely than windows. Apart from the obvious 'it's not windows and it's free' the reason Asian countries are really keen on Linux and it's applications is the strong support for unicode and therefore Asian languages.

Not to be too crass, but it's also (I think) a major reason as to why Revit is doing well in Asia. After reading what you used to have to go through (and still do, actually, IIRC) with AutoCAD to use Asian characters, well, I can see how a more modern program like Revit, that fully supports Unicode, would be a major plus to that market.


The biggest hardware issue Revit has is making it multithreaded. CPU manufacturers have stated the future is multicore systems. So if Revit is going to scale with new hardware it needs to run on more than one core. No easy task.

The future is Distributed and Multi-core. Or so I believe. Revit is at this time neither. It's easy to be these things if the program is written in something that makes it easy to be (an interipted language, like Python or Java). Revit isn't that either (for good reason, it would probably be too slow if it was). So we've got some interesting times ahead. This, actually, is my greatest concern about the future of Revit & BIM (but no one else seems to be pulling ahead here, heck, ArchiCAD still won't fully update their stuff for OS X, so...). I hope that with the Alias buy-out Autodesk now has the brains to make this work internally, but it's still going to be a (sadly) loooooong time before we see this really working (even tho we have access to multi-core systems, software, and applications right now via BSD/Linux/OS X).

[jpolding]

I just assumed that Revit won't work on Linux. Has anyone tried?

[hand471037]

I just assumed that Revit won't work on Linux. Has anyone tried?

I tried using Wine and Mandrake 9-something back with Revit 5.1, and no dice. Others here have tried more recently, and it still looks like you can't get it to install.