Software
Graphisoft Archicad 25 The new release of Archicad, Graphisoft’s flagship BIM authoring tool, is the silver anniversary (25th) edition. Heavily focussed on delivering on customer requests, Graphisoft is increasingly integrating its cloud services and desktop products, writes Martyn Day
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hile we live in strange Despite the pandemic, Graphisoft’s Archicad 25 times and the ‘normal’ CEO, Huw Roberts remains buoyant. Archicad has turned 25, and the flagship world still feels some- “2020 has been our best year ever,” he told BIM tool from Nemetschek’s Graphisoft what distant, the software AEC Magazine, “We have high aspirations division is not showing its age. It is, in industry doesn’t seem to have skipped a and expectations for 2021 and beyond.” fact, even older than the release number beat. It’s somewhat reassuring to see In the UK, Graphisoft experimented would portray. The first version came out annual releases come out from key soft- with giving away free use of Archicad in 1987, before software firms got into the ware developers delivering on the contin- licences for six months. This was an habit of rolling out annual releases. ued evolution of design tools, indicating attempt to break the stranglehold that The software spans Microsoft their customers are still managing to con- Autodesk Revit has on the UK market Windows and Apple Macintosh, expands duct their business, albeit in disjointed and to give potential migrators ample BIM viewing to mobile Apple iOS and geographic locations. time to see if the grass was indeed green- Android and offers cloud-based teamWe have a lot to thank the cloud for and er, given the deep-felt frustrations that working through its BIMcloud. probably all have difOver the last ten or ferent perspectives on more releases, the future IT infrastruccompany has proven Key areas for the development in Archicad 25 include that it has a dedication ture, collaborative tools, offices and digiticollaboration with MEP and structural (building on to evolve, expand and sation. But hopefully last year’s new functionality), enhanced design tools rewrite the underpinwe can all now find the ning foundations of and more accurate quantity take-offs unmute button in the Archicad code to Microsoft Teams. better use modern If anything, the pancomputing power. demic has seen us rely on technology led to last year’s open letter to Autodesk Archicad 25 and Archicad 24 (which more than ever. When the impact of (tinyurl.com/adesk-letter) . came out soon after the pandemic startCovid-19 was better understood, There does seem to have been some ed) share a common theme, that of dediGraphisoft introduced free emergency traction with this aggressive offer, and cating development to respond to cuslicences for customers whose staff, sud- AEC Magazine has talked to a number of tomer feedback and requirements. denly working from home, had difficulties firms who took up the opportunity. This is a departure from the focus of accessing licences located on company Roberts stated that the company’s teams previous releases, which were themed networks. Graphisoft also offered free in Brazil, Russia, Latin America, around addressing specific design areas. access to its BIMcloud service (which was Singapore, and Southern Europe have seen This means there’s little wholly ‘new’ in an additional subscription) to enable strong double-digit growth over the last Archicad 25 in terms of capability, but it remote collaboration between even more year, while Austria, Italy, USA, UK, and should be a guaranteed crowd pleaser to distributed teams. France are well above the year-to-date plan. its user base.
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July / August 2021
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www.AECmag.com
20/07/2021 07:38
