License Subscription Costs

[Glen1980]

Has anyone on this forum started to get pushback from the money men regarding Autodesks move to subscriptions?

 

We currently run mostly AutoCAD LT with a few copies of AEC pack from our Revit trial that never got downgraded.  I went to the chairman to present Revit again as an option for moving the company forwards to now catch up with the rest of the industry and I got no further than the 5th slide (I started with the costings to avoid nasty shocks) and he shut the presentation down saying he isn't going to pay >£200k per year for software, up from £25k.  Are any other companies looking at alternative CAD BIM software to Autodesk?

Edited May 20, 2019 by Glen1980

[rkmcswain]

2 hours ago, Glen1980 said:

Has anyone on this forum started to get pushback from the money men regarding Autodesks move to subscriptions?

 

 

There are plenty of thoughts on this madness over here:

Perpetual License Changes

Moving to Subscription

[tzframpton]

I would have discussed costs at the end. Now you didn't get to explain reasons why these options should be considered. 

 

There are some alternatives to Revit, depending on your discipline. Being able to exchange an IFC format would be a key feature to BIM compatibility. For architectural design, there is ArchiCAD and Rhino. BricsCAD has an alternative too I believe but not sure where it stands in development. ArchiCAD would be the closest product to Revit as an alternative. 

 

If you are Structural, I'm not aware of anything so I cannot provide comment. For MEP, there is no close Revit alternative, however AutoCAD MEP and Bentley Systems have some good alternatives that do support IFC. But, anything Autodesk puts you in the same boat so you can rule out AutoCAD MEP as a viable option. 

 

Also consider this: Revit does not support forward or backwards compatibility so it's very hard to sit on one version for years like you could with AutoCAD. In other words, you can't just buy Revit 2020 outright and use it for the next 7 years. You'll have to maintain current versions regardless. I believe if you did the math on purchasing a perpetual license and add in the subscription costs of upgrades, it's approximately the same costs of the new subscription model. 

 

Going with a BIM platform can change the dynamics of efficiency and value. These things should also be considered, whether its the expensive Autodesk platforms or other lower cost alternatives. 

 

-TZ

[Glen1980]

It was frustrating that he didn't let me continue as I had some truth bombs to drop, like we are already struggling to recruit because of no Revit.  We are a medium sized company who do most design in house and with the large scale jobs we do people come in and think I don't want that hassle.  It is only going to get worse as people leave college and university with Revit skills they won't want to lose to work on DinoCAD!

Our first choice is Revit as our Structural engineering consultants use it and love it, I've used it professionally for 18 months and love it.  In fact, I only started here because of being told Revit was coming in!

Trouble is the big boss has made his money doing things his way and not following the industry standard, so he isn't fussed how other people work.

I have had Graphisoft come in to present ArchiCAD to us as we are architectural in house and it looks good, dare I say it, it looks more user friendly than Revit and the output looks nicer (although I don't know how much front end work that took!)  The rep tells me he is getting lots of calls from large practices that can't afford (or don't want to pay) the subs.  How many of those calls will become sales is anyones guess.

[f700es]

3 hours ago, tzframpton said:

Also consider this: Revit does not support forward or backwards compatibility so it's very hard to sit on one version for years like you could with AutoCAD. In other words, you can't just buy Revit 2020 outright and use it for the next 7 years. You'll have to maintain current versions regardless. I believe if you did the math on purchasing a perpetual license and add in the subscription costs of upgrades, it's approximately the same costs of the new subscription model. 

 

This and for not much more you get the entire AEC collection, OK $500 more per seat but still not earth changing per year.

[tzframpton]

3 hours ago, Glen1980 said:

It was frustrating that he didn't let me continue as I had some truth bombs to drop, like we are already struggling to recruit because of no Revit.  We are a medium sized company who do most design in house and with the large scale jobs we do people come in and think I don't want that hassle.  It is only going to get worse as people leave college and university with Revit skills they won't want to lose to work on DinoCAD!

Then sit back and let your chairman face those challenges when it comes back up. Either way, if you're in the AEC industry, chances are you will have to adopt Revit at some point, period. Now it's his/her problem I guess. 

 

Keep trucking with Revit in the meantime. 

 

-TZ

[ammobake]

One thing we are seeing locally in Alaska is that everyone in the state gets their subscriptions from pretty much one business here in Anchorage but that will likely change soon and probably put them out of business completely.  From what I've been told you will have to get subscriptions from Autodesk only which shuts out vendors who have profited in the business for decades.

 

In the past you would pay this business your subscription fees annually and they would take care of anything you could ever need with the software including support and since they were local they are always easy to reach.  In the old days they would even email you a CD copy for free if you requested it. 

 

They also sell special parts for fixing plotters and it's probably the only business in the state that carries all that stuff in stock.

 

Will be interesting to see what happens!

 

ChriS

[ammobake]

I was told I was wrong on this - Autodesk just doesn't allow smaller vendors to sell their products anymore. 

But that does include this place in Alaska that seems most people in the state were using for the last 13 years at least.  RIP.

 

ChriS

[Glen1980]

12 hours ago, tzframpton said:

Then sit back and let your chairman face those challenges when it comes back up. Either way, if you're in the AEC industry, chances are you will have to adopt Revit at some point, period. Now it's his/her problem I guess. 

 

Keep trucking with Revit in the meantime. 

 

-TZ

 

It's annoying is all, we had to fight tooth and nail 14 years ago to move over to AutoCAD, albeit LT, as the locally produced "CAD" programme Drawing Express wasn't up to the task of a large medium rise scheme we were about to start,  In my opinion we are in the same boat now as we are working on even larger developments but expected to do them in less time.  Revit would help massively.

 

The only thing we'd be likely to use out of the AEC package would be Revit and Navisworks.  Maybe AutoCAD for site plans as I recall Revit does nice 3d representations of the site but it is a bugger to hatch the surfaces to indicate what they are.  Happy to be proved wrong on that!

[rkmcswain]

12 hours ago, ammobake said:

I was told I was wrong on this - Autodesk just doesn't allow smaller vendors to sell their products anymore. 

But that does include this place in Alaska that seems most people in the state were using for the last 13 years at least.  RIP.

 

ChriS

 

I would agree that from outward appearances, Autodesk is looking for phase out resellers. Certainly a lot of the smaller "mom and pop" shops have been gobbled up by some of the larger ones, but there is no "rule" that "smaller vendors" can't be an Autodesk reseller. (whatever the definition of "smaller vendor" means....). 

 

 

[Stef71]

Many compagnies are leaving the drawing stuff to architects and started scribbling on the pdf's instead. The full Autodesk pack is way too much if you only have to do minor changes in Autocad now and then and they don't offer a decent other option for that. I'm not sure this is such a good move by Autodesk but time will tell

[RobDraw]

They do offer a couple of viable options. AutoCAD LT and monthly subscription.

[f700es]

$1,268/yr for FULL AutoCAD is not really a lot of money ($106/month) and LT is $315/yr. NanoCAD free is always an option.

[halam]

AutoCAD LT on a subscription?? Really. I might as well trow money out of the window.

The signs say: Move away from Autodesk.

 

I use GstarCAD now

600,- euro forever.

Completely AutoCAD , no difference

Most lisp and addon work fine.

 

Edited December 1, 2020 by halam

[f700es]

Meh,  if that works for you then rock on with it. Competition is good for all.

[Glen1980]

Hi all, long time no ...... see, speak, whatever!

 

I saw this in the UK architectural press a few months back, albeit critisising the development speed of Revit, but AutoCAD only gets a few bells and whistles every update and seems to bloat and slow down.

 

Leading Architecture firms pen open letter to Autodesk

 

With this follow up.

 

Open letter swells ti over 100 signatories

 

Here is the letter in full.

 

Merry Christmas to all at CADtutor and have a happy new year!  Hope you  can all see loveones and be safe.

[RobDraw]

Old news. I think that letter was poorly written by some frustrated uninformed CAD techs.

[f700es]

I have Acad 2021 on my home PC (4th gen i7, 16 gb ddr3, sata ssd and GTX 650Ti) as well as my Work PC (8th gen i7, 32 gb ddr4, m.2 PCIe NVMe ssd and RTX 2080) and there is not a lot of speed difference or not any that I can see except for saving files back to hard drive.