Revit 2010 opinion poll

I would like to thank everybody who voted on the recent Revit 2010 opinion poll. As the poll is now closed, these are the results and it makes interesting reading. This is an extremely small snap shot of what is an ever growing Revit community and Autodesk may not be that concerned to be honest, but it does highlight a couple of points.

On the question relating to "What do you think of Revit 2010?", we had a total of 60 votes.

• 42% (23) Thought this was great release.
• 20% (12) Thought this was a awful release.
• 38% (25) Thought this is a good release, but Autodesk missed an opportunity.

On the question relating to "Will your company deploy Revit 2010?", we had a total of 55 votes.

• 55% (30) said "Yes" they would deploy 2010.
• 18% (10) said "No", they would not deploy 2010.
• 27% (15) said "Not Sure" whether they will deploy 2010.

The majority of those that responded, 42%, thought this was a great release. But 38% thought although it was a good release, but once again Autodesk had missed an opportunity. Now my view on this is that some of the on going issues such as text editing, stairs, railings, site etc could have been resolved. However, I guess these are big projects internally to the development team and will take time to address, but to be honest I don't believe a good quality text editor can be that difficult to implement?? I am sure this would have helped many of the user base who just use Revit as it was intended, a BIM documentation tool. 20% thought that 2010 was a awful release!

More worryingly was the answers relating to whether your company will deploy Revit 2010.The majority that responded, 55%, said that they would deploy 2010. But 18% said that they wouldn't. Is this signs of a worrying new trend? My experience over previous releases has been that users can't wait to get their hands on the new release. Are we starting to move into an update every other year mentality which seems to haunt AutoCAD? I hope not, but I do wonder if the interface overhaul has been too much for some to stomach? The new UI will evolve. When the Ribbon UI first appeared in AutoCAD 2009 it received similar complaints by users, some liked it, others hated it. However, in the case of AutoCAD at least you could enable a classic mode. The AutoCAD 2010 releases sees modifications and improvements to the UI which fine tunes it, I'm guessing this will happen with Revit, which is possibly why some are considering waiting until 2011. There is a cost to deploying software and this release will probably be the most costly for firms to deploy. When bottom lines and productivity are being watched so carefully CAD managers / IT directors are probably considering the value of the move to 2010.

I guess its a question of inevitability. Eventually you will have to make the leap to the new UI, if you decide to stay on the Revit platform. I'm sure users will complain and you will be rushed off your feet preparing new training material, deployment plans, resolving support issues etc, but at least by the time 2011 arrives you can focus on new features again, rather than worrying about where your tools have disappeared to.