What is a good answer for "Can Autodesk buy out Bricsys someday"?

James Maeding
James Maeding
in Other

I've done cad since 1990, and am about to convert our company, if possible, to mostly bricscad (100 users...).

People are asking if its a risky thing to do. Autodesk recently essentially cut off the option to upgrade, as they charge 70% of a new seat to do so.

As I watch Autodesk get desperate, I wonder if they will try to squash the competition.

Any solid reasons I can use to explain the bricscad folks would rather die than sell out? Could bricscad even be sold, given its ODA association?

thanks

Comments

  • Robt Deans
    Robt Deans
    "....I wonder if they will try to squash the competition."
    There are far, far too many CAD proggies out there for them to acquire them all.
    The stockholders would not be happy, in that the immense cost could not be justified.
    Autodesk (for better or worse) is still, by far, no. 1.
    Autodesk has made many acquisitions: Softdesk, Discreet Logic, VISION Solutions, Revit, etc, etc.
    These soft.s were acquired to expand their product base. They all had proprietary code and were legally protected.
    Bricsys (as good as it is) doubtfully has any core features that AutoCAD desires / lacks.
    Although there are never any guarantees in life, I'd be surprised if Bricsys is even on their radar.

  • James Maeding
    James Maeding

    I guarantee its on their radar, in terms of sales lost. Its the only platform that has a .net api and good lisp support.

    They would buy it simply to maintain their monopoly of fear. 

    It could be bought though, right? Is there anything in place that prevents it from being sold to a non-ODA party? (if that makes sense at all).

  • Torsten Moses
    Torsten Moses
    Dear James,

    there is a *major* difference ... Adesk is stock-noted company, therefore not
    "owner of their will & intention", but Bricsys is not owned by stock / shareholders ...

    Mainly, nobody can buy something that the owner is not willing to sell :-)
    So the second party of such a deal is simply missing :-)

    ODA is not related, in generally ...
  • Terry Dotson
    Terry Dotson
    I personally think it's very unlikely, so if you want to move to Bricscad I suggest you don't let this stand in your way.  One thing is for sure, the Bricsys people are constantly improving and making corrections available.

    Just so you know we're around 95% done in porting everything to Bricscad thanks to the .NET interface, so cross-grades are an option.  Also I assume you know DonB in San Diego is evaluating MapWorks ?   Feel free to email me.
  • John Gaunt
    John Gaunt

    At least one dwg program outside acad and bcad has lisp support. I suspect many like me would just migrate somewhere else.

    Acad's acquisition of Generic CAD might be some guide to what might happen - the choice of alternatives seemed to grow, not sure it ultimately did them any good at all.

    If Acad has made it easier to jump off their upgrade wheel, it should be just as easy/economical to stay off for a while and jump back on.

    With the similarities, I don't feel I (admittedly only a seat of one) would have much trouble swapping back, but it would now take a lot to persuade me not to drift further from Acad.

    What if Acad ceases to be?

  • Robt Deans
    Robt Deans
    "I suspect many like me would just migrate somewhere else"
    I agree.
    If (big IF) Autodesk were to buy out Bricsys:
    a) Only a very small percentage would migrate back to AutoCAD. Thus, not making such a capital expenditure a good business decision.
    b) Assuming they DID buy out Bricsys in a few years. It's not like you'd have to spend weeks / months retraining your staff on new CAD software. I migrated almost immediately with only a few minor glitches. If you were forced to make the relatively seamless migration back to ACAD, consider the savings you've realized over the number of years that you all ran Bricscad.
  • James Maeding
    James Maeding

    Thanks for the replies, good crowd going here :)

    Migration is not an issue, as I keep all our tools ready for all platforms. The issue is cost. Its too expensive to get off and back onto adesk products due to the 70% of new seat pricing they just implemented. The simultaneously lost 70% of the respect I did have for their business practices, and likely 70% of our future purchases.

    I'm not worried about bcad being bought, its my company partners asking. You can bet there will be a party in our office the day we move to a non-autodesk platform. I am pushing hard to get our lisp progs compiled to .des, I have to work out the separate namespace issues though.

This discussion has been closed.