M-Reed

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Everything posted by M-Reed

  1. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Every program I have followed (Softplan, Datacad, Vectorworks, AutoCad, and many others) all have adopted the subscription model.
  2. It's been years (1995 - CA4) when I first started asking about brick sills for windows. Now 2024, some 29 years later.... Brick Window Sills? Maxie Reed
  3. I realize you may have already made agreement with another Chief Pro but, in case not, I would like to encourage you to at least discuss with me your options. I am a veteran Chief Architect user since version 3.0 and AutoCAD prior to that as well as a master builder for 40 years. It is my intention to focus on As-Built work for clients such a you as well as Architects and designers. Depending on your location, I will consider travel to your home site as part of the project. Not only dimensions but all structural elements are included. Will combine with site survey if available or will contract a survey to be done if not. Feel free to reach out, I will be in touch within a 24 hour period. Sincerely, Maxie Reed Location: Texas maxrhj@gmail.com
  4. Anyone remember 2008? Pretty crazy time for all. I was in Colorado at the time and my business was booming with many high-end designs coming my way for the Northern Colorado area. Then the bottom fell out and almost all the local builders went bust. The few that kept afloat did so by changing. So, you ask, what kind of change? This is where most will disagree. The first thing done was to cut all expenses possible. And yes, that means some of the extra help had to go. These guys did their best to help them get other jobs too. Bottom line though, without trimming the fat, they would have been out of a job anyway. The builder's started wearing more "hats" and did a lot of the work themselves. Some scaled personal expenses down to save money. There are lots of things that can be done to cut costs for sure. Next, was something they did not do, a price increase. If anything, they dropped what they could. You ask why? No rocket science here. You have a market going south and homeowners losing their homes right and left. Many jobs were lost and people were having a hard time to make ends meet. The government bailed out the banks who caused the crash, but the builder, suppliers, and subs were all left holding the bag. That said, who had the finances to pay more? Seriously. But, obviously enough folks had the same mindset, and many did survive. When the market started coming back, guess who got the work. Now it's 2022 and the economy is shaking hard. There is very good chance the 2008 crash will be child's play in comparison. I know many feel that's simply not going to happen and so we continue on as before even though we were blessed with a warning! Did anyone learn from it? Makes me wonder. Chief Inc., you have a very large and loyal customer base that is getting shoved aside regardless of history with the company. I hear about how so many are cutting back to try and save money as the economic slowdown begins to really hurt. Several users here are encouraging the company to ignore them, making noise about how they are not buying SSA and because of that are not supporting the company. It would seem, for some reason, that would be their fault. What is not considered is how so many have gone above and beyond that. Ask them, or even me, how many sales of Chief were due to theirs or my influence and referrals? Many times, I engaged in projects with other builders and developers where the software licenses were covered by a single group entity. Yes, they were upgrades for me, but many were new users and followed my lead. I hosted a CAD group in Colorado where users, first starting out with the home versions, ended up upgrading to full versions due to others and myself encouraging them as they learned and displayed the aptitude and desire to move up. I can see this slowdown being a very good time to cut back, eliminating the frills, and focusing on ways to save during the bad times. Imagine taking a few top programmers and focusing on eliminating so many of the bugs that continually get swept by. Taking a bad situation and making a good one for both Chief and for the users. I am willing to bet this sales direction did not happen easily, it sounds more like scrambling to make it all work out. Thing is, just like the builders I mentioned earlier, any company who focuses more on their user base and how to help them survive the economy will be the company whose user base will still be around as the financial picture improves. Please forgive me my writing tonight. I am tired and cannot see so good in this light, but I wanted to make this one last effort.... Maxie
  5. What's interesting here is how some users are critical of other's complaints and tend to ostracize them for those complaints. Turn it around, the same users are loud and long when the issue has a negative effect in their direction. Between the egos and the pricing change....