Special Feature: The State of the Union on Mac CAD

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 AEC Growth on Mac

The Mac has always been strong and popular with architects and an increasing number of construction professionals are picking up and utilizing Mac laptops in particular. The iPad, for its part, here in the US, is clearly the darling of the building industry…far and away the leading tablet platform. Apple’s partnership with IBM may help solidify and grow the iPad’s dominance within AEC by establishing powerful beachheads within large enterprise-size construction companies.

While nearly all new software tools made for architects today are now arriving on both Windows and Mac together, there are some seminal tools not on the platform natively. Autodesk has, for instance, decided to take the cloud path to the Mac with its popular Revit AEC software, tapping innovative streaming technology from OTOY. Also for its part, Autodesk has spoken up more forcefully than in the past about “openness” within the AEC industry, referring to CAD/BIM data interoperability.

In another sign that Mac users will gain more accessibility to the CAD industry’s best tools, the Nemetschek Group, of Germany, has been in “acquisition mode” lately and picked up US construction software darling Bluebeam Software. The move bodes very well for both Bluebeam and Nemetschek’s many customers around the world. The Berlin-based holdings company, as a group, has a massive Mac installed user base.

MORE: Nemetschek AG Exec’s Talk Details of Bluebeam Acquisition with Architosh

Finally, in a unique developing story that will affect CAD markets around the world, Bricsys has announced BricsCAD for Mac OS X and the product comes with a deliberate set of new technologies aimed at AEC. More specifically, BricsCAD has a new SketchUp-like 3D environment with the beginnings of BIM (Building Information Modeling) tools.

03 – BricsCAD for Mac has finally arrived in version 15 with a powerful feature set across three versions.

In the last few years the Mac CAD market has gained major new CAD offerings, including: Grabert’s ARES Commander, Dassault Systemes’ ARES-based DraftSight, Corel Corporation’s ARES-based CorelCAD for Mac, and now the independent BricCAD V15 for Mac.

Future of Mac CAD Hardware

While Apple’s Mac computers continue to garner more attention and an increased installed base, at the hands of the Windows PC world, there is still much left to be desired when it comes to computer systems tuned best for high end professional markets. The new Mac Pro (nMP) was a much-needed injection into the Mac professional installed base who have remained faithful to the platform for so long. Yet, the product is expensive and configured with less flexibility than many pro users would prefer.

MORE: Architosh to publish its Mac Workstation Survey Study in January 2015

During the time Apple was perfecting the new Mac Pro many users tried using iMacs with i7 processors as new pro desktop replacements. The result? Quite a lot of happiness—actually. As this publication has noted several times, even PC workstation maker BOXX has noted that the ultimate workstation for single-threaded architectural applications is an Intel i7 processor at the fastest frequency you can find. The new 5K iMac has, in fact, that very processor in its belly.

For now we will refrain from saying much more about Apple’s Mac hardware with respect to the needs of CAD industry professionals. Our survey report on the matter is coming up later this month. What is clear is that Apple offers a spectrum of Macs that users are buying and putting to use within the CAD industries. And while we can imagine some decisions that would help accelerate that process along further, we don’t see any fundamental problems with Apple’s Macs maintaining their current momentum.

Closing Comments

In less than two years Apple will most likely reach an installed base of 100 million Macs, gaining 20 million new users from mid-2014 through late 2016 or early 2017. Remember how at one time Steve Jobs stated very clearly the company didn’t need to be a winner at market share for it to be profitable with its Mac product line? Do you recall? That was back when the company had an installed base of 20 million Macs. What happens when Apple now grows its installed base by that figure every 2 and half years? What impact will that make, not just on the CAD markets, but all markets?