Chief Architect educational vs Autodesk Revit (3 year FREE academic license)
Hi, I'm a father, and an engineer. I've homeschooled my kids on and off through the years. I have a daughter that I feel has an artistic gift (which I don't really understand); she's been showing that since she was just a few years old, but now as a teen, expresses it in created art, clothes, etc, even though her dad has been a little heavier on instructing STEM type curriculum.
I have an old version of Home Designer that I bought a few years ago which I've let her use. She's in middle school, but very intelligent and capable. I've watched her eyes light up as she designs houses, views them in 3D. I suggested to her that she might one day do that as a job.
She's really taken an interest in it so I thought, I wondered if I could purchase an Academic license of Chief for her, but was disappointed to learn that I couldn't.
I found out that Chief has fairly strict requirement for students. We buy a few software titles each year on educational licenses and I've found Chief to be at the upper end in terms of the qualification stringency.
At the same time, I stumbled across Autodesk Revit. It's normally a $6000 license, but Autodesk allows students to download the software from their website, and they also electronically provide a FREE 3-yr license. I would say that Autodesk's educational license is by far the easiest and one of the most generous I've seen. (if fact, they allow most of their software to be downloaded for free now, for academic purposes.)
So we ended up using Revit simply because it's easily obtainable. We've found that it's extremely full featured but also more complicated. (The educational version does not appear crippled in any way). Revit has an extremely high level of polish, with an industrial strength quality about it, and some killer features in my opinion (for example, the simple "steering wheel" icon control is fantastic IMHO.) The downside is that the learning curve is higher with Revit than with Chief. Revit appears to have a lot more control, but there's so many "knobs to turn" it takes a while to learn them all. I would say the philosophy behind how the two programs work are quite different.
I can imagine what happens next. Kids can get all the Autodesk software, can experiment with the software, and LEARN how to use the software. (This is the type of education that I don't have to pay, at least not yet!) I imagine that when they go to college, they'll think "AUTODESK" for software needs because it's easy to obtain and they're used to the way it works. Schools will be in the same mindset because they can populate entire label with zero hassle. When these kids graduate from college, they will be very proficient in using Autocad, Maya, Revit, Solidworks, 3ds Max. I imagine how this affects the future software purchasing patterns. It's a great, strategic plan.
So, my thought here for Chief is to consider your academic marketing approach. I would suggest making your software more available to a broader educational market. Socially, I think it's the right thing to do, but financially, in the long run, I'd also expect it to make competitive sense.
Google Sketchup Pro is free for educators and homeschoolers
Thanks for your comments on Sketchup. On you note, I did a quick search and it runs out that Sketch Pro is free for teachers, including homeschoolers.
http://sketchup.google.com/industrie...educators.html
http://www.creationengine.com/html/p.lasso?p=16243
