Listening to concerns "top priority" says Autodesk following architects' criticism of BIM software

Software company Autodesk has said it will address the concerns of its customers after 17 of the UK's largest architecture practices wrote a letter criticising the cost and lack of development of Revit.

The American software company vowed to listen to the feedback within the open letter to its president Andrew Anagnost, which describes architects dissatisfaction with Building Information Modelling (BIM) software Revit.

"Engaging, listening to and addressing the concerns of our customers is a top priority for Autodesk, and we appreciate the feedback we received in the open letter," said a representative of Autodesk.

Signed by 17 of the UK's largest architecture practices including Zaha Hadid Architects, Grimshaw and Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, the letter states that costs of the application have risen rapidly in the past five years, but the product hasn't been developed at a similar rate.

"Concerns relate to the increasing cost of ownership and the operation of Autodesk's Revit software and fundamentally its lack of development," said the architects' letter.

"A need to prioritise resources"

Autodesk acknowledged that some of the concerns raised by the architecture studios were valid and deserve its attention.

"While there are points it raised that we disagree with, there are also issues raised that we must take to heart, which highlight areas where we've fallen short," said the representative.

In response to the letter's claim that Revit is not been developed quickly enough to meet the needs of architects, the software company explained that it had been focusing on developing the application for engineering and construction companies.

"Over the past several years, we increased our product development to serve engineering and construction customers, because we believe having a multi-disciplinary BIM model connected to construction enables better collaboration among all project team members," said the representative.

"As with any business, there is a need to prioritise resources. We do recognise the need to balance and have recently increased our development on the architectural capabilities of Revit."

"Expect to see progress in the future"

Autodesk assured architects that it has a plan in place to develop Revit, which is available to read on its website, and that it understood architects concerns over its shifting pricing models.

"Expect to see progress here in the future," said the representative.

"We also empathise with customers that have gone through different license models in the last few years as we've transformed Autodesk to become a subscription-based company that can serve our customers better," the representative continued.

"We've done our best to balance these changes with a more valuable experience and trade-in offers that give long-time customers a path to experience these benefits at a cost consistent with what they pay today."

Autodesk is an American software company that is best-known for creating computer-aided design (CAD) software AutoCAD.

Image is by Coolcaesar.

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