Europeans Examine Non-European BIM Vendors' Sales Practices

Autodesk having its own 2020?

 

The European Construction Industry Federation (ECIF) is a go-between organization of construction firms and 32 countries in Europe. It is calling on the European Commission to investigate the non-competitive nature of BIM software in Europe.

Specifically, the organization is calling out software companies involved with BIM that

• Are non-European
• Offer software only by increasingly-expensive subscriptions
• Limit software use to only in the country of the software's licensing
• Sell software with poor backward compatibility
• Have little actual experience with construction

When we take these criteria into account, I am of the opinion that it seems that the ECIF is referencing just software vendor specifically (despite the plural) that I think might match the criteria: Autodesk. It could be that there are others, as well, but Autodesk would be included if there were a group coming under the spotlight.

Here is what ECIF wants, and it is something we all would want:

It should be for the market to decide, and this is why the construction industry needs open, competitive, and fair markets for software and related services.

The FIEC's position paper is not new; it came out in February. Still, it seems that Autodesk might be having its own version of 2020, as architects revolt publicly against the limitations of Revit, and the EC  being called to investigate BIM vendors that aren't European. 

ECIF makes more points, which go against globalization (of which I am no fan, and so the Balkanization is interesting to observe). ECIF wants that

• EU companies should be able to have their data hosted on EU territory, by EU servers, under EU legislation
• Creation of a secure European cloud
• Non-EU software services should be required to meet EU standards for interoperability and open access
• European Commission should promote open standards for data, protocols, and file formats in public procurement
• Legal protection of BIM data to protect intellectual property

I dislike government getting involved in our personal lives and company practices. But as we see with the likes of Google and Facebook, the network effect creates authoritarianism of a corporate kind, and that must be fought against. 

You can download the position paper from https://www.fiec-ar.eu/images/pdf/WG4.0-2020-02February-D-FIEC%20position%20paper%20on%20Software%20companies.pdf

 

Comments

[Fernando Gonzalez]

Hi there,

It seems like an association of companies with obvious profit interest is trying to cut expenses... how is this different to what we doing everyday going to the supermarket? Do we have control over the price of... potatoes? or trendy Avocados?

Let me highlight something from personal experience. I had a boss that wanted to automate everything and make modular construction because he realised on the benefit he could have from cutting construction costs by pre-fabricating. A classic BIM approach.

Now, what he did not realised at the begining is that he'd have to increase significantly the design inversion in hours and tools enabling the task... when he did it was too late for 2 reasons he didn't bring right specialists able to predesing AND he didn't use the right tools, and those tools are expensive... all good tools are expensive, especially if are digital in this increasingly digitalised word... So he admitted that Autodesk flows would have work when bankrupting... he made is choice. I do not get why the obssesion with Autodesk here...

Second point, and as mentioned what happened to my ex-boss is happening at an industry level, everything is digitalising and there is a HUGE investment from software companies supporting that change (but dont get confused here, Software Companies are addresing Industry needs... NOT the opposite way) So, when this ECIF is proposing that paper are actually not understanding the same that my ex-boss missed, that the inversion is balancing towards DESIGN stages and PRE-CONSTRUCTION stages. That's the whole point of BIM and some construction firms are missing the point because they have significantly LESS benefits rather than more expenses, that of course are justified by the investment made by not only Autodesk but others too. I'm a fan of BENTLEY for example...

So what are we talinkg about here? you do not want the Avocado? take the Donut... let's see for how long you'll benefit from it...