I've got a serious political problem...

[jgargac]

Cadd,

You're definitely faced with a tough decision. I honestly don't have the experience to understand what you are going through, nor do I have the right to tell you what to do. What I would say, however, is to do what you feel is honest thing to do and to make sure that you can live with the decision.

"You can’t, in sound morals, condemn a man for taking care of his own integrity. It is his clear duty."
- Joseph Conrad

"Though you cannot see, when you take one step, what will be the next, yet follow truth, justice, and plain dealing, and never fear their leading you out of [any difficult situation] in the easiest manner possible..."
- Thomas Jefferson

Hope this helps,

Jeff

[caddmannq]

Knot:

They might surely go elsewhere. We'd survive without them, too. But it's hard to turn away such a big account, were there any other way. They are (figuratively) trying to make dovetail joints in 1/4" mahogany with a ten horsepower chainsaw, and spend so much time rasping, filling, and sanding the result that they would have saved time and effort to do it all by hand with a chisel and saw, and created a better product in the end. It would be like giving a 16 year-old novice the keys to a forumla one car with a grabby clutch, a peaky power band, amd stiff brakes, and and sending him out to drive gymkhana on a hockey rink.


Doogie:

That is exactly what we do now. And for the majority of our clients, in fact. Successful and professional architects though our clients may be, their cyber-efforts usually leave much to be desired. We take off the rough edges, both conceptually and graphically, and feed them back the best data time and budget will allow; often quite a bit more.

Unfortunately, we cannot enter into a truly collaborative effort with this particular client, were we in fact willing to adopt their chosen software/modeling approach, as their implimentation leaves so much to be desired as to render it barely useable for their purposes let alone ours.


Wart:

I wish I'd had the opportunities to peek into these matters when I was your age. It might have saved me many errors over the years. Take note, my friend.


Orbiter:

I won't personally take the flack, in except that my fortunes are tied to those of our company. In any event, the situation is well understood by the drafting staff, and mostly (though less intimately) by the principals. I have indeed voiced my concerns, past, present, and future. They have been well received, if not completely understood. Well, it is a specialty.

I don't think that there is any chance that the clients will admit to this costly fiasco, were their own people able to convince them of it's seriousness. If those evidently making the decisions had done their homework, this situation would have either been less odious, or never been instigated in the first place. But what is, is.

While Acad2K, and it's direct parents and children are the standard of the industry in what they do (and do it all with great aplomb); the add-on products all pale by comparison. Unfortunately, Autodesk (like Microsoft) knows that they are a great revenue generator (quality notwithstanding) once you get people locked into them by the initial investment. Considering their power, they seem like a great bargain to the purse-holders in the business. Considering their steep hardware/wetware requirements and built-in limitations, bloatware is a most fitting description for what, under enlightened scrutiny, truly turns the smalllest job into a production headache.

CaddmannQ

[caddmannq]

Sharder:

Since I'm part of the management, the burden of analysis and recommendation falls to me. The burden of selling the clients falls to the individual principals. I'll certainly let them have that baliwick. I don't think they will take the direct approach, however. This business is largely driven by word-of-mouth, and we won't want to be labeled as unsupportive. Rather let them think we are too expensive. It keeps out the riff-raff

Our principals (to their great credit ) support my views completely, though reluctantly; as they know that the economic consequences will be undesirable for either choice. There are no good ones, only less evil ones.

Frankly, I've been looking forward to the adoption of the principles which the new software advertizes, They all make good sense. Unfortunately, this stuff is still more of a curriosity than a well integrated system. While it's performance under controlled circumstances is nothing short of remarkable, the real world brings it to it's knees in short order.


Brandon:

I'm pretty sure that we'll slide sideways out of the whole affair. Well, I give it a 90% chance anyway.


Jgargac:

Thanks for the inspiration. It's hard to fault Conrad, and impossible to fault Jefferson. Our approach may not be the most direct one, but it will certainly be diplomatic.

[charmler]

*

[sharder8]

the burden of analysis and recommendation falls to me

Oh joy!!

Harder

[cadetstimp]

Maybe include translation of their existing data in your job proposals...

If your the one to translate most of their existing data as needed as well as new data then it would justify to include the "translation software and both engines" in your quote.

Offer more service and have them pay for the software.

The neat thing about CAD software is that data that has gone through translation software still has to be to be checked and massaged or cleaned up by CAD operators that know what they are doing.

The support of two data formats definately increases your costs...pass the bill along to them. Let them know how much supporting multiple formats could cost.

[Richard Cranium]

Idea;

Pen up the fundamental pitfalls of the system including the potential customer base losses.

Deliver it to some D'Head in Ga and I'll mail it to the top Brass in Never Never Land.

They'll have no idea as to where it came from.

Distort some of the verbage and local terminology so they can't tell exactly if it did come from "inside"

Make it look like a "Tip" from a friend/customer who'd rather not reveal his position.

Maybe ?

""

[FreakyOCR]

/me thinks that an OUTSIDE review of this product brought to the attention of da big guys... would... get their attention...

/me thinks.

If I was a big d00d way up da ladder I would get PISSED OFF if I found out that a decision made by me was screwing the company up and that the guys below me were lying about it...

But I guess that's office politics for you...if you aree honest you get canned.... sigh...

There has to be another way.

[caddmannq]

Charmler:

I actually did that way back last year. The conclusion of the independant report was "not ready for prime-time." They went to the a project manager of that firm, at his request. He was attempting to head them off at the pass. It evidently didn't work. Some salesman or outside agent was more persuasive than the in-house guy.


Stimpy:

Effectively we do that now, but our product is routinely delivered to them on paper. There is no way to deliver them the data in the electronic format they want, that would not require us to both spend a bundle on software/training, and use their ponderous preliminary work as a base. Design developement goes through several cycles as it is. This means several translations: a real nightmare.

But they are pushing for continuous on-line collaboration, and there is no way that's going to allow us to really massage or translate or recreate data in our format.


Doc Vette:

I considered that. Unfortunately, I don't think the message would ever make it through their bureaucracy to the right guys. What I need to do is buy off one of their golf buddies. Unfortunately, that is beyond my means. In any event, I've been requested to avoid direct contact by the principal in charge of this account. He's pretty convinced that friendly persuasion is worthless in this case, and I think he intends to just bite the bullet and blow them off with big price hikes.


Freaky:

As I said above, we did that (through channels) some time back. These guys apparently don't listen to what their own staff is telling them. They don't trust their own staff to have either the knowledge, or to have the company's best interests in mind.

My experience of 25 years in business is : be starightforward, transparent, lay out everything clearly, focus on the issues not individuals/personalities. No matter what, if you are "seen" as a fair and straightforward person, you win in the long run.

Being upfront and calling a spade a spade may not seem like the best thing right now, but its the least risky and you can't go wrong.

That's my suggestion.