"When I give, I give myself." -- Walt Whitman

Nemetschek to Acquire Graphisoft, Uniting European AEC BIM Leaders

Posted on Thursday, December 21, 2006 4:00 PM
By Randall S. Newton
Editor-in-Chief

Graphisoft SE, maker of ArchiCAD, has agreed to accept a two-stage buyout from Munich-based Nemetschek AG, Europe's largest AEC-based CAD/BIM vendor. Nemetschek will first acquire a majority interest in Graphisoft at €9/share, approximately its current trading price, then make a public tender offer for all remaining shares.

The move unites Europe's two largest AEC-specific CAD/BIM vendors, both of whom were early adopters of 3D modeling as as primary AEC design tool. Graphisoft's ArchiCAD and Nemetschek North America's VectorWorks are both popular with boutique architecture firms, and both are available in Mac and Windows versions. Graphisoft's newer Virtual Construction line of products are starting to gain a following among progressive construction firms in the US. Nemetschek's ALLPLAN, a 3D AEC design platform popular in Europe, never caught on in the North American market.

Nemetschek has indicated it intends to run Graphisoft as a separate division, but I believe it would be in the best interest of both the vendor and the user base if the Graphisoft and VectorWorks lines could be consolidated as soon as possible. Autodesk Revit has emerged as the clear leader in BIM design software. The only way the Europeans can offer a credible challenge will be to move forward as soon as possible with a single offering, combining the best of both products. ALLPLAN, by comparison, will never be relevant in the North American market. The most recently reported annual revenues of the combined companies is €126 million.

“This is a very important strategic financial acquisition and we believe this will substantially increase our shareholder value,” said Mr. Gerhard Weiss, CEO of Nemetschek in a prepared statement. “It is our intention that Graphisoft will retain its own identity and continue its strong corporate culture and distributor network which is driving its success.”

“There is a consolidation in the software industry and joining the forces of the two leading European AEC (Architecture, Engineering & Construction) software vendors will solidify our global position in the worldwide market. We believe that this move will serve the interests of our shareholders, customers, partners and employees,” said Gabor Bojar, Founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors at Graphisoft.

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# re: Nemetschek to Acquire Graphisoft, Uniting European AEC BIM Leaders

12/21/2006 10:00 PM by mike moore
I am intrigued as to why you feel so srongly that Allplan will never be relevant in the North American market.

Allplan is a very capable and mature product - its low user base in the US is probably due to poor marketing by the US distributor. Their website is pretty ordinary.

# re: Nemetschek to Acquire Graphisoft, Uniting European AEC BIM Leaders

12/22/2006 2:05 AM by Ben
"Autodesk Revit has emerged as the clear leader in BIM"
Which version of Revit are you using? It's a long from being a clear leader as you state

# re: Nemetschek to Acquire Graphisoft, Uniting European AEC BIM Leaders

12/22/2006 10:44 AM by JT
Your statement - "Autodesk Revit has emerged as the clear leader in BIM design software." is bogus. The fact of Autodesk practically giving away Revit with AutoCAD to increase/inflate their user base is not the same as firms actually using the program. How do you back up this bogus claim?

# re: Nemetschek to Acquire Graphisoft, Uniting European AEC BIM Leaders

12/22/2006 11:11 AM by Karl
"Boutique" firms? How can you call some of the largest architectural firms in the world "boutique". Combined with the bogus claim about Revit as the 'clear leader', there is clearly no objectivity to your Revit/AutoCAD cheerleading here. (Shall we compare square footage or total buildings designed with each product as the sole design and documenation tool?) Is this "AEC" "News", or an Autodesk press release?

# re: Nemetschek to Acquire Graphisoft, Uniting European AEC BIM Leaders

12/22/2006 11:32 AM by How Goes It
"Autodesk Revit has emerged as the clear leader in BIM design software"

This article says that "active seats" cannot be determined ---
http://www.architosh.com/news/2006-12/2006a1222_graph-nem.html


What one of China's top 5 eng. firms thought when comparing Revit to Archicad ---
http://www.graphisoft.com/community/success_stories/cisdi.html

# re: Nemetschek to Acquire Graphisoft, Uniting European AEC BIM Leaders

12/22/2006 12:35 PM by Geoff Briggs
Considering VectorWorks huge success in it's chosen markets and it's vast difference in approach to AEC as compared to ArchiCAD and AllPlan, combined with it being headquartered in America, I think the obvious next step is the consolidation of ArchiCAD and AllPlan. That gives Nemetschek solid offerings in multiple market segments, eliminates competition between their two high-end products, and solidifies them as a legitimate player in the BIM arena. Interestingly they are doing so the same way A'desk did, by acquiring other companies.

# re: Nemetschek to Acquire Graphisoft, Uniting European AEC BIM Leaders

12/22/2006 4:10 PM by BigD
There's not going to be any merging of software. It amazes me that people are jumping to such wild conclusions. Think about it, the two companies are just going to use each others resources to improve their individual software. I expect Constructor to be at the forefront of this. This article is biased towards AutoDesk (oh surprise surprise) and is probably intended to provoke fear through ArchiCAD users. It wouldn't be the first time they have used underhanded tactics. Sounds like they are a little frightened and they have every right to be. What a great time to be an ArchiCAD user and things will only get better!

# re: Nemetschek to Acquire Graphisoft, Uniting European AEC BIM Leaders

12/22/2006 5:39 PM by ewartleon
Why when Revit was on its own evrybody on here sang praises, but now it is in Autodesk camp everybody hates it, come on Revit may not be ahead of the pack but it remains the most user friendly BIM software on the market. I like the results of the latest Bently Microstation, but guess what, it is not user friendly. I think you all hate Autodesk for been successfull. And by the way, did I mention the amount of illegal seats of revit been used, maybe it is in the lead afterall. I await revit 10.

# re: Nemetschek to Acquire Graphisoft, Uniting European AEC BIM Leaders

12/22/2006 10:29 PM by Geoff Briggs
Maybe you're right BigD. And certainly nothing will happen overnight. But it makes sense to me to merge AllPlan and ArchiCAD in the future. I'm not saying that to sew fear. I like the idea. I think it is a match made in heaven (or at least Europe). Just my opinion, of course, which I guess I should keep to myself since you seem to have everything figured out.

# re: Nemetschek to Acquire Graphisoft, Uniting European AEC BIM Leaders

12/23/2006 5:19 AM by Michael C. Schettine
The pending merger means little without the bigger picture in mind. When will one of these companies combine the design phase to interact with the building envoriment other than d size paper?...now that would be news! BIM has yet to show us the value added solutions everyone has been speaking about for years enough for us to place a value on that effort. About the merger; lets not kid ourselves, it is a big play on the overall scheme of things, Nemetschek is making a hugh play for the US AEC market, Autodesk will answer with it's own main play to counter the merger....stay tuned!

# re: Nemetschek to Acquire Graphisoft, Uniting European AEC BIM Leaders

1/1/2007 8:52 PM by ASIS
"Autodesk Revit has emerged as the clear leader in BIM"
I find this comment interesting as AutoDesk is giving this product away for free. There is no way to calculate how many sites are sitting on shelves and have never been installed.

The simple fact is these people are never going to learn the program without making an investment. Most think that BIM is simply building a model and then dropping back into AutoCAD to produce documentation. I would bet 3% of architects can actually build a "BIM" model. I would be inclined to think that Nemetschek and ArchiCAD users are a lot alike as they have made the investment and made the decision to use their software in order to actually build accurate construction models. These firms using their products will excel beyond the others if they have not already.

Unfortunatley with the power house behind AutoDesk we will always get a "bent" story and most likely from their perspective. The way I see it, AutoDesk can only lose marketshare at this point. Anyone could give away software for free but only the dedicated ones will learn to model. I think that gets us back to the college bell curve and the European companies will continue to set the curve.

# re: Nemetschek to Acquire Graphisoft, Uniting European AEC BIM Leaders

1/2/2007 10:30 AM by Warren Payne
The statement that "Revit is a clear leader" is misleading, both softwares have around 100,000 supposed users. ADT has 475,000 supposed users but maybe that doesn't count as BIM software. So I'd say that its a bit early to tell who is a 'clear leader'. It is to early to tell who is the clear leader as market penetration is so low and does it really matter as long as what we use suits our purpose.

# re: Nemetschek to Acquire Graphisoft, Uniting European AEC BIM Leaders

1/3/2007 8:33 AM by argarza
Well, looks like there are some poeple here that loves archicad and all plan, but just mentioning some recente facts I know and have seen:

HOK is moving all their instaled base to Revit
In Mexico, where I live and work, recently some of my costumers ar switching from ArchiCAD 8,9 and even 10 to Revit.
In Mexico also, the biggest housing construction company is changing all their design seat from AutoCAD, architectural Desktop and ArchiCAD to Revit (more than 800 licenses).

The last number I have about Revit seats (bundled or not) is above 150,000 world wide, number reached in six years.

Not measurable licenses said someone, well, here is just a little mention of facts.

It´s true that there are many seat of revit that are sold in a bundle with AutoCAD, but I can tell, at least in Mexico again, that many of that bundled seat are switching to Revit.

How many? Can´t tell you pretty sure, but its a growing number.

The real fact in this is that Nemetschek and Graphisoft can become in a bigger player in the market and this can give benefits to the users in general.

# re: Nemetschek to Acquire Graphisoft, Uniting European AEC BIM Leaders

1/4/2007 4:33 AM by Carl G. Harkins Jr, AIA
Our design-build firm did two years of research on which BIM technology we were going to adopt to replace our 2D CAD systems. Form-Z, AllPlan, Revit, Desktop, ArchiCAD, and Microstation were all put to the test. In Jan 2006, we quite literally "threw away" AutoCAD; ArchiCAD became our sole corporate design tool. Why? Because of ArchiCAD's compatibility with the estimating, scheduling, and sequencing tools we utilize for construction of the projects we design - in other words, we have been able to truly apply BIM, instead of just talking about it. Adding real-world application of BIM (making the construction side of our company happy) with an Owner's ability to actually see, understand, and accept the project before starting the permitting process (making the Owner happy) equated to a higher project success rate in 2006 than in the four previous years.

An additional benefit to using ArchiCAD is the time required to coordinate building systems between different disciplines (structural, civil, MEP, etc.) has decreased, even though our consultants and/or consulting design-builders are using AutoCAD, CATIA, or Microstation.

We owe our current successes to the dedication of our design team members. They tested the software, decided that ArchiCAD was best, and then dedicated themselves to learning and using the system. But the real measure of our success is to build - not just design - facilities with maximum profitability and customer satisfaction. ArchiCAD is the BIM tool we use to to be successful.

# re: Nemetschek to Acquire Graphisoft, Uniting European AEC BIM Leaders

1/4/2007 5:12 PM by Intrigued
From their websites Archicad has 100,000+users and Vectorworks has 200,000+users. Allplan's website doesn't say.
Does anybody out there know what the approximate user nos worldwide are, and in particular the architectural users?

Maybe its a bit like the Autodesk scenario which bought the better solution of Revit because their own 3D offering was going nowhere fast.
Are Nemetschek buying Archicad because it is a far better solution than Allplan? If so will Allplan survive?

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