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Nol Twigt

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Everything posted by Nol Twigt

  1. Dear JimW and Pat Stanford, Thank you again for your reactions and your patience with me. However your reactions make me feel the need to get back to this discussion one more time. Your solution for me is straight forward thinking: ‘if you don’t use VectorWorks on a professional basis, so it is not worth the investment, you better switch over to another CAD application.’ This is a solution that makes perfect sense to the mind. But it is a very unsatisfactory solution for the heart. Doesn’t your heart say something like: ‘VectorWorks is a fantastic CAD application. It is a very good tool for designers to make beautiful designs. The more people use VectorWorks the better for the designers, for Nemetschek and for the whole world?’ Now the Nemetschek marketing department has developed a policy that dries the breeding ground for VectorWorks users: students, amateurs, semi professional users. Why is it so hard to admit that this policy is stupid and unethical? This marketing and pricing policy is developed by people with blinders on. For professional VectorWorks users it may not be problem to update their software and pay for that. For all others the prices are much to high and the unethical side of it provokes a lot of anger. Let me try to make this clear by using an analogy. Imagine that a car crashes against a tree. Most people will judge instantly: ‘Stupid driver. Probably drove too fast or was not paying attention.’ But the driver says: ‘Brakes failed!’ Now most people may say: ‘Stupid excuse of stupid driver.’ Once they have judged people don’t like to change their opinion. Let’s say that technical research prove that the driver was right: the brakes really failed. Can we still blame the driver? People who really want to stick to their opinion will reason that it is the responsibility of the driver that his car in in perfect condition, although in their heart they probably already know that they are on a wrong line of thinking. But what if the driver has had his brakes repaired only a few months ago? Then it is reasonable to say that it is the fault of the garage. The garage in it’s turn will probably try to blame the manufacturer or the designer of the brakes. The deeper you look into what really happened, the more things or people you can blame. Maybe a stone hit a brake line. Can you blame the stone, that should not ave been on the road? Maybe you find that the tree should not have been there, so you can blame the planter of the tree or the builder of the road. There is a certain arbitrariness in who you want to designate as culprit. Everyone has a well developed defense mechanism that arranges the facts so that it looks like he himself is not to blame. The designer of the brakes will probably say that it is technically impossible to design brakes that never fail. The public will accept this statement until there comes a manufacturer with a car with really reliable brakes. Then the public will change it’s opinion instantly: ‘of course we don’t buy a car with brakes that can fail any moment. A cars like that is not safe.’ This is why it is the Nemetschek marketing and pricing policy that needs to change. A CAD application that forces users to buy updates does not feel safe and it does not feel right. Users want to be able to continue working with it, also when Apple changes it’s OS and also when you go through a period when you can’t or won’t invest in a CAD system. So thank you Pat Stanford for your suggestions for alternative CAD applications. I know all applications that you suggested and you forgot the one that seemed like the best alternative to me: Rhinoceros. These are the practical reasons why I decided a few months ago to invest $ 2.384,33 in VectorWorks, although it felt really unfair that I felt forced to pay for VectorWorks again: 1. I would like to read and edit the drawings that I made with VectorWorks and MiniCad in the past twenty years. 2. I am active in many different fields: houses and interiors, furniture, industrial design, mechanical products, yacht design, animations. VectorWorks covers most of these fields reasonably well and better than other CAD software that I know on the Mac platform. 3. I would have to invest weeks to learn to work with other CAD software on the level that I work with VectorWorks now. 4. With most other applications the results (renderings) would not be as good. And thank you JimW for your invitation to write down my demands for a VectorWorks Light application. VectorWorks itself is, like many other CAD systems, based on the outdated idea of the old drawing boards. If you have the chance to start from scratch, you have to reinvent design software, based on design thinking, computer screens, 3D printers and other CAM tools. I would really like to work on a project like that. If you are serious, you have to hire me. Free advice does not work.
  2. Dear JimW Thank you for your comprehensive response and for correcting my figures. No intention on my part to miscalculate or overdo the facts. Even with your corrections I think the numbers are outrageous. Everybody can make his own calculation on this. I myself have just lost my self confidence in these matters, but my gut-feeling remains the same. Just think of how many hours of programming can be done with the profit of the VectorWorks upgrades. Maybe professional architects and draftsmen accept the prices for VectorWorks updates, but for people like me, who make drawings only now and then, they are unaffordable. This is the consumer point of view. You all seem to look at it from the producers point of view. I have been thinking about the reasons why we disagree. This must be one of them. A second reason I see is that you, Nemetscheckians, think only of professional users. There must be a market for CAD users that want a simpler and less expensive kind of VectorWorks. I am not a marketeer, I just look around in my own environment. I know that ‘light’ versions of other CAD applications have not been very successful but that may have reasons that are no longer applicable if it is done in the right way. The other thing is that there is a point where a CAD system outgrows its market. It becomes harder and harder to come up with new features that impress your clients. The less professional ‘simple’ users like myself will be the first ones to feel that this is happening. Better to be aware of these signs and react wisely on them, than to reason them away. Reason, that is another issue here. It seems that you, JimW, reason very well, but you feel very little. When I miscalculate, and you correct my figures, your mind will say ‘You see, I am right, he is wrong’. And so you can write that my theories are baseless: I found an invoice for a VectorWorks upgrade in my mailbox that I do not want and will never download. That is no theory, that is reality. I think that a firm who charges clients for things that they don’t want and don’t ask for don’t live long. This kind of ‘marketing’ provokes a lot of anger, that will sooner or later work against you. Still I do not I accuse Nemetscheck of any of the things you say I do. I wrote that Nemetscheck misuses it's position. You, mr JimW accuse me of changing my position all the time. My position has never changed. I just used different words to describe the same thing. I will give it one last try and then I am out of here. This time I will do it the Zoomer way. I hope that this is the way that you rational digital people can understand: - Is there a future for a firm that tries to sell a product that the consumer does not want? - Is a firm that tries to force a client to pay for a product that he does not want and that he does not consume on the right track? If you say Yes to one of those statements, I don't think you’re for real. If you agree on 2x No, then make Nemetscheck change their marketing policy, so VectorWorks can live a little longer. For that is what we all want, isn’t it?
  3. Sorry Jim, Kevin, Matt, I feel that you all drift away from the point that I tried to make by starting this discussion. Of course it is all right that the software industry moves forward like a caterpillar. One firm makes a step, others follow. That is how it goes. Of course software needs to develop. This is a never ending story. However the point is that Nemetscheck forces users to upgrade VectorWorks, which costs each user more than € 1.000,- They seem to blame Apple for the need to upgrade, but with 400.000 VectorWorks users this gives the Nemetscheck bank account a rise of something like 4 billion (!!!) dollars. I don't think that Nemetscheck is very sorry for this situation. This situation continues as long as the VectorWorks users are happy with the new features or feel dependent because they need the upgrade. All other applications that are mentioned charge reasonable (small) prices for their forced updates. Time for VectorWorks users to wake up and stop Nemetscheck from misusing their position.
  4. JimW, Thanks for your reaction, but I am afraid you totally missed the point, or I totally don't understand you. I, like your 65% Apple users, am forced to update my Apple OS now and then, because I work with several other applications. When I update my Apple OS my old VectorWorks does not work anymore. It costs me over $ 1.000,- to buy a VectorWorks update that I don't really want. I think that a company like Nemetscheck does not need to sell it's product in a such way that consumers feel forced to pay. Companies that 'steal' from their costumers usually don't last long. Buying an upgrade should be a fair deal. If you want it, you buy it. If not, you don't. If you love the product but begin to hate the producer, because he tries to put his hand in your pocket, things really start to go wrong.
  5. Hi there, I started this discussion and I red your reactions and I am willing to believe your stories, but they leave two questions unanswered: 1. Why is VectorWorks the only application that requires updates when Apple changes it's OS? (Of course Apple should do this when necessary and I understand that it is not easy to keep everything compatible). 2. If Apple is really to blame for the 'inconvenience' (I still have my doubts there) then is it fair that the VectorWorks user pays the price? Why doesn't Nemetscheck protect their customers and put the bill for keeping older versions compatible with Apple? And for the car comparision: imagine what would happen if the government or the fuel companies suddenly decide that fossil fuel is no longer available. We all have to buy electrical cars now, or put an electric motor in our car. Do you think that they would get away with that without paying the car users for their conversion costs?
  6. I guess that you all know that the older VectorWorks versions do not work on the latest Apple Operating Systems. This forces VectorWorks users to buy the latest VectorWorks Updates. Am I the only one who thinks that this is not a fair way to do business or do we all agree on this?
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