A group of 25 primarily British architecture firms sent Autodesk President and CEO Andrew Anagnost a five-page open letter censuring the Silicon Valley-based design software giant for rising costs of ownership, which have soared. up to 70% in five years, on its leading Building Information Modeling (BIM) product, Revit.
The signatories of the letter assure that the development of Revit has stalled and that companies that depend on the use of this obsolete software (already 20 years old) have had to face, among other things, continuous changes in licensing models, tactics of aggressive selling in corporate licensing and a complete lack of understanding of how business dynamics work within the industry in which the company operates.
According to the signatories, “Where Autodesk Revit was once the industry enabler for smarter work, it has increasingly become a bottleneck and bottleneck. Users are paying more and more but using Revit less due to its limitations ”.
The letter ends by begging Autodesk to rectify by offering "a customer-centric, non-antagonistic, innovative, progressive and achievable action plan" that includes - but is not limited to - a commitment to cost stability, a commitment to research and development designed for the specific needs of the architecture and design community, the desire to establish a cultural association with its customers based on "trust, empathy and respect" and first of all "a vision, a plan of action and an investment strategy that is directed to add value and performance to design organizations that prioritizes rebuilding Revit from the ground up to reflect the functionality the 21st century digital industry needs. "
While architecture and design firms are sweating to overcome the financial shortcomings created by the coronavirus pandemic, Autodesk has seen its shares rise 62% in recent months. Last week Autodesk announced that it has acquired Pype, the artificial intelligence-based software creation platform.
