Therefore, I am no where near an unbiased observer. Also, I now have a job with a competitor.
I was one of the people that was "pushed out" when new management took over. Statement of bias: I worked for RISA for 16 years starting in 2002 and was the former Vice President. If it is absolutely great then it would likely mean that new management has 'proven themselves' to the user base. Therefore, if this is a train wreck, then it tells you a lot about the downward direction RISA would likely take in future years. And, the programming was done by an entirely different group from overseas. While this program was in development while I still worked there, none of the folks who were "pushed out" of RISA (when the new management fully took over) had much to do with this project. But,it is definitely a major change and it will be interesting to see what the user base thinks of it.ģ) This should be a really good way of judging the new RISA / Nemetschek management.
Especially, if the new sales restrictions (they refuse to sell the software anymore, but force you to rent it).Ģ) Didn't STAAD have a STAAD-X program / interface that was supposed to be the big new thing that no one ended up liking or using? My sense is that the RISA folks are "all in" on this interface more than the STAAD / Bentley guys were for STAAD-X.
If this is a totally new interface that doesn't "feel" like the old RISA, then the effort spent learning the new interface could easily be spent learning a different program. So, if the interface is too different from the old interface, that may take away any barrier for existing users to switch to another program. My thoughts:ġ) The biggest issue for most users when switching to a new software is learning a new interface. It will certainly be interesting to see how this shakes out.