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[Don] Yes, we are working to get more third-party systems to integrate and interoperate with ArchiCAD. We want to do the coordination, we want to produce documents, and we want to integrate the information from the various participants into the model.

[AFR] Sure. The thing with BIM that has been challenging for a lot of people -- and you can read discussions about BIM in the industry -- it is still not mature enough because everyone is working with different systems, so you have someone's model here, trying to relate to some other person's model, and the models can't really talk to each other yet, or you can't take the model data and drop it into someone else's application because it is not compatible.

[Don] Right...

[AFR] But where do you see BIM going ultimately then if that incompatibility continues to exist?

[Don] There will be some winners and losers if the incompatibility in the industry stays that way. I don't think that it will. There is significant regulatory, government and customer pressure on translation (compatibility). And it will happen....

[AFR] You see...

[Don] I really think it will happen!

[AFR] You see some kind of BIM standard emerging in the market?

[Don] I think everyone does, and it's the IFC that is the best idea and the best technology that has been implemented to date. We are using it successfully between us and Bentley, we are using it successfully between us and ADT, we are successfully using ArchiCAD and a host of other applications, probably numbering about 20 now and approaching 30 real soon. And we have 40 or 50 planned. Dominic has a dedicated team for IFC. We are really committed to it -- we have already implemented 2.0.4 IFC...

[AFR] The next spec?

[Don] Yes, this will improve the ability for data to be transferred. Now something else may come out of the woodwork that will change our direction. But will we probably always support IFCs.

[AFR] Will Revit support IFC?

[Don] They have just been certified for stage 1. Which I think they can send data out but not in. And it means a bunch of certification tests haven't been done yet. And that will take some time, I'm not sure of their plans.

[AFR] So I saw the story on Winslow/Orcutt on Apple's site. It was great to see such a large Mac firm get that attention. How many firms of that size does Graphisoft have in the US? Is it a significant number?

[Don] Um, yeah, I think so. I don't have the exact numbers on the tips of my fingers, but there many firms of that size who are based on ArchiCAD in the US. And we are working on that, getting more of those firms. And there are a lot of firms almost that size around as well.

There seems to be -- and I heard this from David Sutherland, the guy that came over who talked about ArchiCAD from Australia --a point at about 25 to 40 employees a natural segue into, "okay we are either going to become a really, really large architectural practice, or this is really too many people to handle and things get too confusing so we should not grow past this size", type of moment for firms.

So I think that is why a lot of practices are 5-30 people.

[AFR] You know, in the AEC IT Survey Report Architosh published a few years ago we saw clearly in the data there seemed to be a line at 25 people, from an IT perspective. And what happened is that when you crossed that line that you had to get very serious about technology and day-to-day IT client support. And you needed to have at least 1-2 full time IT types of folks and that those folks -- having generally very different technology backgrounds and educations from architects -- they were able to offer firms a higher level of support at the application level, so they were able to bring into firms, things like advanced databases or web application development.

Where people who are technology savvy and who are architects or engineers supporting a smaller firm probably didn't have the time for one, to even contemplate bringing in those more advanced systems, so yeah there is a line out there at about 25 people. The data supports that clearly.

You have to get serious as an organization and become very smart about management.

[Don] Yeah, I think you are right, and that is probably part of what inhibits that growth about 25, boy we really have to change how we do things, if we really want more, so maybe we should just be satisfied with what we have.

[AFR:] Well, you know the AIA says that about 85, almost has high as 90 percent, of all firms in America are less than 20 people.

[Don] Yes, that is consistent with what we see.

[AFR] There's only five percent of firms that do 90 percent or more of all the billable's, and those are the gigantic firms. So there is this really interesting asymmetry in this profession.

[Don] Yes, there really is.

[AFR] Is that a problem for Graphisoft in terms of the way it thinks about developing ArchiCAD to serve these two different segments?

Continued >

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