'But these numbers are far lower as a percentage than, for example, our cost of Amazon Web Services and Microsoft enterprise tools, the 'mission critical' platforms that drive our revenue, and certainly reasonable for tools that are at the centre of the daily work of architects.'

'We realise that Autodesk expense is not the only aspect of software costs and that architectural practice margins are tight and managing any cost is important,' he added. The resulting costs averaged 0.63 per cent of revenues,' he wrote. 'We examined the 2019 revenues of the 17 firms that signed the open letter to us and compared those numbers with the expense of Autodesk software.

Related story Zaha Hadid Architects and Grimshaw among architects to criticise Autodesk's BIM softwareĪnagnost used the architecture firms' own revenue data to rebut their claim. But the price of Autodesk design software is not a comparable influence.' 'There are many significant pressures on the profitability of our customers' practices, including intense fee competition, incursion by builders and other disciplines, and the increasing complexity of design. 'I am completely sympathetic to the challenges of running a profitable architecture practice in difficult economic times, particularly during the pandemic,' he said. 'At the beginning of this year we significantly increased our engineering investment in Revit Architecture, and I am committed to continuing that investment into the future,' he continued.īut Anagnost pushed back against the claim that the cost of Revit, which architects use to create digital 3D models of buildings, is hurting architects financially.

'Our architecture functionality didn't progress as quickly as it should have,' Anagnost wrote. 'Autodesk spends more on research and development now than it has in its entire history,' said Anagnost.Īn Autodesk representative responded to the open letter in late July, calling the concerns a 'top priority', but the CEO took several weeks to publish his response. The company has only been able to invest in this new platform because of switching to the subscription model, he said. 'Significant' increase in Revit investment

He offered to share the details of its new BIM platform that will be 'centred on a common data environment' with its customers under a non-disclosure agreement.

Autodesk revit architecture