Bricscad has launched Vista, an Internet collaboration and project management portal. It features unlimited use for an annual flat fee.
The pricing's a bit odd. The fee increases from year 1 to year 3, sometimes. As well, there are different prices for different disciplines, as well as number of employees in the firm.
Using the calculator, I found these prices apply:
1 architect - $1,980, $1,980, $1,980 - 0% incr.
10 architects - $4,210, $4,730, $5,200 - 23% incr.
100 architects - $17,820, $25,080, $33,000 - 85% incr.
1000 architects - $75,420, $132,850, $209,330 - 177% incr.
10,000 architects - $319,230, $703,810, $1,327,910 - 315% incr.
1 architect = $1,980
1 engineer = $3,300
1 project development cy = $5,280
1 property owner = $6,600
It's an interesting development for a business which was spun out of Bricsnet. Bricsnet launched its Building|Center ASP project collaboration solution in 2000. Bricsnet's founder and ex-CEO, Erik de Keyser, then led a management buy-out of the CAD software parts of the business in 2002, with BricsCad supposedly "completely dedicated to CAD". Now it seems BricsCad is going into direct competition with its former parent Bricsnet.
One other thought occurs - regarding the branding. When Vista was launched (it appears to have been around for a few months), BricsCad probably thought it was a fairly safe name to use. We now know that the new Microsoft operating system (previously codenamed 'Longhorn') is to be called Vista, so I wonder if there may be some branding issues? Just two months ago, Silicon.com was reporting "Windows Vista name spat gives Microsoft a headache" as some software vendors were already using the Vista marque. I wonder if BricsCad is also concerned about possible confusion between the Microsoft operating system and its specialised software, or perhaps wonders if customers or end-users will assume it is somehow tied - for better or for worse - to the Microsoft OS?
Posted by: Paul | Oct 07, 2005 at 07:36 AM