Architosh Staff ([email protected])

30 Sep 2004

 

Mac SIG Group Offers Suggestions for AIA Documents for the Mac OS X platform

Group of Macintosh-based architects open up dialog on options for supporting the Mac platform with AIA Documents software.

A group of Mac-based architects has set up a website that is chronicling efforts being made to get the American Institute of Architects to develop a native version of AIA Documents, a specialized software package designed for architects and building professionals that rely upon the use of the AIA's contractual documents and business forms. AIA Documents is software that is integrated with Microsoft Word and architects typically use it to create and print out contracts for clients and contractors and numerous other construction administration forms.

Since the software is based on the popular Microsoft Word software application -- which is also available for the Apple Macintosh platform, it has been disappointing and incomprehensible to many Mac-based practitioners why the AIA has not developed a native version for the Mac.

Set up by Matt Arnold, the Macs in Architecture website is a discussion board site for those interested in seeing the development of not only AIA Documents for the Mac but for the formation of a Macintosh Special Interest Group (Mac SIG) within the AIA. The Mac AIA SIG would work to support the needs of the many Macintosh based architects in the industry.

The AIA is currently monitoring interests in a native version of AIA Documents and according to a post on the Macs in Architecture website, "it comes up in every meeting" at the AIA regarding this software. The primary way in which the AIA is gauging interest in the software is via an Architosh-led petition effort. (If you are interested in seeing this software come to the Mac platform please take the petition now.)

Dialog Leads to Excellent Suggestions for AIA

While many architects have completed the petition and chimed in on the matter at the Macs in Architecture web site, some have contributed by suggesting the AIA take a different course of action.

John Hawkins made several suggestions on the boards. One very straightforward suggestion, but one the AIA would likely never do, was to just give users the documents in Word format. Making the suggestion that the AIA follow the music industry with regard for concerns about copyright infringement, John suggested that they develop technology similar to the technology that locks music files to a specified number of computers or allows them to be copied a set number of times as Apple has done with popular iTunes music software.

Other suggestions included the AIA developing a Web-based system for procurement of the AIA documents and possibly the very management and multiparty viewing, printing and markup of AIA documents via a Web interface.

A Different License Model

Perhaps the most compelling suggestion was for the AIA to license the AIA documents to software developers enabling them to integrate the AIA documents directly within their applications. Such a scenario would mean that the AIA would obtain royalties for each application that shipped with integrated AIA document feature functionality included. Such a plan would possibly force multiple vendors -- including the possibly of CAD vendors -- to compete with each other by developing innovative technology that enabled architects to not just produce the AIA documents themselves but to also manage the entire documentation process through the life of a project.

If the leading architectural CAD vendors all integrated AIA documentation into their applications and the AIA was compensated for each box that shipped, the organization could possibly come out way ahead since many folks who buy a product like Autocad may never use AIA documents, but the capabilities to do so would be there in the application nonetheless.

Many architects have noted that it is not enough to just have software that prints out AIA documents. Many firms have developed innovative ways of managing the documentation process itself by employing database programs such as FileMaker Pro. Architects will often craft carefully laid out reports in FileMaker Pro that place database field data in the proper place in an AIA document form when it is fed through a printer's manual feed tray. No doubt a database company, third-party developer, or even a larger firm with database expertise might license the AIA documents for internal integration projects.

The AIA could develop an AIA SDK (software development kit) with a flexible licensing model that ties back revenue increments to third-party software shipments. With so many excellent software companies competing with each other out there -- often matching each other feature for feature -- might it make more sense for the AIA to let these companies do the serious coding innovation work while the AIA focuses its resources on the documents themselves?

Indeed, many have suggested that the AIA Documents application isn't really much of an application at all. Far from being a comprehensive document management system like a database, the application doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of what a system like this might actually be.

Closing

These ideas may prompt the AIA to consider the fundamental assumptions they have about the AIA Documents software application and its ongoing development and maintenance. Ideas such as licensing the documents to software developers could offer the national organization more revenue than they are currently getting now while boosting the organization's goodwill by serving all of its members regardless of platform.

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