German
Norwegian
Dutch
DDS and Graphisoft join forces
Dear customers, Dear business partners,
You have learned that DDS will merge with its sister company Graphisoft. We will explain the background and motivation for this merger further down on this page. First, however, we will give you some answers to questions that you may be asking yourself as DDS-CAD users or DDS business partners:
Questions and Answers
Our DDS-CAD product line will continue to exist and be actively sold to existing and new customers in the foreseeable future. Therefore, full technical support and software maintenance will continue to be offered as well.
The strategic aim of the merger is to use our two companies’ combined development resources to create the best MEP design software available out there on the global market. DDS-CAD will benefit from workflow integration with mission critical core technologies such as team collaboration, mobile and cloud sharing readily available from Graphisoft.
For the moment both Graphisoft’s and DDS’ product offerings will stay unchanged so you will continue to get access to what you can access today. In the meantime, our joint product teams are working on creating our long-term joint product strategy which we expect that will open up new crossdisciplinarity opportunities in the future.
Customer satisfaction and support play a fundamentally important role at Graphisoft, as they do at DDS. Against this background, we will of course maintain the quality of our technical support. Your questions and support requests will therefore continue to be dealt with by highly trained specialists also in the future.
You will benefit from many advantages, for example:
- The product and development departments of the merged companies start working together on new development plans. One of the goals is to integrate some technology components already used in Graphisoft solutions in upcoming DDS-CAD releases.
- Thanks to greater capacities, combined know-how and the use of synergies, as a unified company, we will be able to develop even better software solutions for the design of building projects and workflows between all project participants more efficient than ever before.
- We expect to be able to offer you attractive additional licensing models such as subscription licenses in the future.
But maybe most importantly the future of your main production tool (i.e. DDS-CAD) is now secured by a much larger and more dynamically growing company that is clear to long-term competitiveness.
Your DDS-CAD licence will remain as it is in the short and medium term. We will consider offering additional licensing options such as non-physical software keys (softkeys) in addition to or instead of hardware dongles. In addition to the usual perpetual licences, licences as subscription software will also being considered for the future.
There are no plans to change existing maintenance contracts with our customers. At the same time Graphisoft has a strong Software Services program that will potentially help us further improve and align our service offering as well.
In the short term there are no changes planned, so this option will not be available immediately. It is in our plans to add this option to the available options in the future though.
No. Your well-known DDS team will remain your solutions provider in the future as well. It is conceivable though that the legal structure in which we operate will change so contractually you may be moving to do business with a Graphisoft entity – but the people will be the same nevertheless and that’s what only matters.
No. We will continue to serve our customers and business partners from our existing offices and locations.
The merger of DDS and Graphisoft: background and goals
With such fundamental change happening it is absolutely reasonable to ask the WHY question – and that exactly what we want to do and provide answers for in the following paragraphs.
The merger – a pooling of strengths
DDS and Graphisoft have been sister companies within the Nemetschek Group since 2013. As part of the joint work within the group, it has become clear that the strengths of the two companies complement each other perfectly:
DDS has unparalleled know-how in the development of BIM software for the design of MEP building services, while Graphisoft can make excellent use of precisely these competences for perfecting their „Integrated Design“ approach. On the other hand, Graphisoft has developed technologies that can also be a valuable addition to DDS-CAD. In addition, Graphisoft has successful sales channels worldwide, which can be utilized to provide global MEP offerings.
The merger of the two companies that has now been announced combines the strengths of both companies under the Graphisoft umbrella. This also means that the product development capacities will be united into one powerful team. Synergies can be used to ensure that our combined solutions offerings have a much bigger global market impact, and that innovation continues at an accelerated pace.
Graphisoft – Who are they?
Graphisoft is our sister company in the Nemetschek Group focusing on architects and designers. It empowers teams to create great architecture, through award-winning software solutions, learning programs, and professional services for the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction industry.
Archicad, Graphisoft’s BIM solution is arguably the architects’ design software of choice, offers a complete end-to-end design and documentation workflow for architectural and integrated architectural and engineering practices of any size.
BIMx, the most popular mobile BIM app, extends the BIM experience to include all stakeholders in the building design, delivery, and operations lifecycle.
BIMcloud, the AEC industry’s first and most advanced cloud-based team collaboration solution, makes real-time collaboration possible across the globe regardless of the size of the project and the speed or quality of the team members’ network connection.
Why this merger? – The goals
The primary objective of the merger is to strategically address multidisciplinary design by expanding and integrating our product offerings and by delivering globally relevant OPEN BIM solutions to our customers.
In addition, the merger will enable DDS-CAD to profit from the worldwide distribution channel of Graphisoft. This will contribute to the successful distribution of DDS-CAD beyond the existing markets. This will significantly increase the customer base, which in turn will allow more investment in the further development of the software.
Coming together – What’s next?
The integration process has already started. Joint Graphisoft and DDS teams are working on integration planning. The complete business merger is expected from the beginning of 2022. In the meantime, both DDS and Graphisoft will continue to give top priority to providing all customers with the services they are accustomed to and also to inspire them with their new product releases of the current year.
Do you still have questions? – Please contact us!
We want you to feel fully informed on this topic. Therefore, please do not hesitate to contact us if you feel that you are still missing any information. Our customer support team or your contact person in sales is available for you during the usual office hours!