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[Don]
Yes, it is a challenge, for our product development guys
and our product marketing guys to figure out what
to build and how to prioritize, because there are
some needs from smaller clients that are different
than the larger clients. In general, and luckily,
most requirements are similar, but there are a
few that
are different, and that does cause some
idiosyncrasies at how you go back at the market.
[AFR]
The announcement recently about RCMS...are we going
to see more partnerships like that in the future
with
Graphisoft?
[Don]
Yes, yes.
[AFR]
And these are companies that are for the most part
visualization experts, they are sort of CAD outsourcing...so
exactly how does that work? What's your involvement
with that company and how does that work when serving
the client?
[Don]
I think it's a natural outgrowth of our market share.
So as our market share gets larger, service bureau
say, "hey, one out of every three companies
is using ArchiCAD," so they say why not support
this further?
[AFR]
We are talking about services...we are talking
about not only CAD companies making the
tools
for the AEC industry professionals, but now becoming
involved in providing services directly to them.
Where is that taking you?
[Don]
What we want to do with these 'Centers of Excellence'
is make these people super-proficient, so there
business grows -- as ours does -- and the customers
get the best service possible. And the best documentation
support.
[AFR]
How will you make them super, super efficient?
[Don]
We will work closely with them.
[AFR]
As in training?
[Don]
Yes, well ...generally these are folks who are well suited
to it.
[AFR]
They're CAD jocks!
[Don]
Yes, they are professional CAD jocks and they understand
that you have to really conquer the technology
to be super efficient with it. Whereas
architects might say, "you know what, this
is just too much trouble." These guys say
nothing is too much trouble if I can get the desired
results,
so if I have to change my process just a tiny bit
that's okay with me because I get a movie out
of it that I can charge the client $20,000 for.
[AFR]
Right.
[Don]
The other guy could too, if he learned how, but
he doesn't want to learn. And that's his right
as a businessman if he chooses to outsource it
to someone who knows the technology well. The other
reason we want to work with them is because they
told us they found that ArchiCAD is so flexible
it is super productive for them. So they can rapidly
produce results and put those results into other
formats.
[AFR]
So they may get clients that need drawings back in DWG
because the government requires it for example.
[Don]
Absolutely, no problem. So they bang out a model
and bang out drawings that the client is willing
to pay $10,000 for that they can do for $1000,
then
great.
[AFR]
So these 'Centers of Excellence', if they
grow, this is really a change in the way the profession
sort of works. What we are really talking
about is CAD outsourcing, within and without,
our borders to these specializing centers
for building information modeling.
Thinking
about this, on certain
level, it makes sense to me because one can say
that the jump from
CAD to BIM is just too darn high, and companies
may say: "well, why should I absorb
all that cost?"
[Don]
Yup, it does make sense that we are going to see
some change; I think these centers will also be
very important in the adoption cycle, and so the
steady
state -- I don't know what that will be because
it's in the future -- it will be great for
these experts
to be available because it will help us serve
our customers who are trying to serve their clients.
We
want a bigger eco-system. The more experts the
better we can serve our clients.
[AFR]
What I'd like to talk a little bit amount now is
the Apple-Intel announcement.
[Don]
Sure.
[AFR]
I understand that Graphisoft is going to fully
support the Apple-Intel transition -- and I think
that is wonderful and I didn't expect, honestly,
anything less than that from Graphisoft. But
what I'm really interested to know -- because you
describe this chain or sequence between the original
ArchiCAD product, which supports the Mac of course,
and this construction BIM product that doesn't
-- is,
will the Apple switch to Intel allow more
Graphisoft products to support the Mac platform
in the future?
[Don]
You know one of the reasons we chose the Maxon
product to move forward on was because it supports
all the platforms [Editor's note: Don is referring
to the Windows platforms and the Mac platform as
the platforms]. Whenever we can, we always
want to support both platforms. So some of the
ways in which we are going to go back at the market
-- in the future with new technologies and
products -- we will support the Mac platform.
[AFR]
But not some that are developed around Windows technology?
[Don]
Some of the products that don't are small enough
still
that we need to grow larger before we do that,
and I'm not the decision maker there either,
so there's a rationale for that, because
the level of complexity is significant for
supporting
both platforms, and it's a challenge.
But
we have a great system for handling this development
and going forward this should expand. And hopefully
the Intel announcement going forward will make
that easier for us. And that will service everybody.
[AFR]
Don, thanks for this discussion. We've covered a whole
bunch of great stuff here and I look forward to
seeing your new products and services come to market
in the future. Best of luck.
[Don]
You are welcome.
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[Article
published: 3 October 2005]
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