Autodesk to Buy Revit: Commentary From Industry Experts
"As with any acquisition, it takes a while to
understand the ramifications. This one is somewhat confusing,
since ADT is already being sold by Autodesk as a parametric
architectural program. So is this a admission by Autodesk that
the approach used ADT is incorrect, or do they believe that
Revit can occupy a more design oriented position which does not
conflict with ADT. Or perhaps they see Revit as the future.
"I'm sure that the customers will be as confused as I
am about what Autodesk is presenting as their architectural
solution. However, one thing seems to be clear. They have paid
dot-com prices for a company in deep financial trouble in a bad
market."
Rich Diehl
CEO
Nemetschek North America
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"The primary item from Autodesk's recent conference
call was that Revit had very low revenues. Bartz seemed
surprised that the financial analyst would ask about revenues,
saying Revit was just a "start up." She indicated the
$133 million was for the technology and 100 employees.
"The times that Revit visited here, they always
boasted their aim was to overtake AutoCAD. I guess not,
anymore."
Ralph Grabowski
upFront.eZine
--------
"Leaving aside the financial ratios, venture-capital
scorecards, and Friday morning quarterbacking of the players'
respective game plans, the announced acquisition of Revit
Technology Corporation by Autodesk, Inc. is is a MAJOR win for
architects, allied professionals in the building industry, and
for building owner-operators everywhere. Combining the
complementary strengths of these two organizations and their
respective products will spur the creativity of the entire
industry and raise the intelligence of all documentation for the
built environment.
"This bold move effectively validates both integrated
modeling and the rational evolution of existing processes and
data. On the "rising tides lifts all boats" theory,
that validation also is good news for Autodesk and Revit
competitors such as Bentley Systems, Graphisoft, and Nemetschek.
The real bottom line is what's best for architecture and the
building industry, and this is a deal in which truly everybody
wins."
Jerry Laiserin, FAIA
Technology Consultant / Industry Analyst
jerry@laiserin.com
--------
"It might be premature to comment on Autodesk's
proposed acquisition of Revit. First, they are in negotiation,
so it is not a "done deal", although Autodesk rarely
releases this sort of news prematurely.
"Secondly, Autodesk has a history of acquiring
competitive products/companies and then abandoning or failing to
fully integrate the acquired technology. Some recent examples
are Genius, which can be found embedded in Autodesk Mechanical,
but is still buggy; and Softdesk8, a favorite of AEC users, and
is now ADT Details, which is buggy and annoying because it only
works in a single document environment, has not been fully
integrated into ADT, and is largely unsupported.
"Revit had won SVAPU's
Best of the Best award based on it's merits. It is not
surprising that Autodesk recognized that Revit was a superior
product and so want to add it to their CAD arsenal. If the SVAPU
award influenced Autodesk's decision to acquire Revit, it can
only mean that Autodesk is listening to their customer base and
reacting accordingly.
"If the deal does go through, we hope that Revit
suffers a better fate than Genius and Softdesk8. Revit deserves
to survive in the marketplace."
Elise Moss
President
Silicon Valley AutoCAD Power Users
www.power.org CAD Digest Related Articles
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