GeoTools-CADPower V22 Life-cycle: Key highlights

[Rakesh Rao (GeoTools-CADPower)]

Dear GeoTools-CADPower user,

Greetings from Bengaluru, India!

Firstly, I would like to thank each of you for your role as a customer or channel partner in helping us improve CADPower and GeoTools since V1 in 1999.

Today, in its 22nd year, our products have grown significantly, and all this has been possible because of your support.

This newsletter comes to you to inform you of some analytics about GeoTools-CADPower, some policy matters concerning the V22 life-cycle and the impact this will have on pricing.

Recently, we added ZWCAD and Graebert GMBH's ARES Commander to the list of CAD platforms that support our products.

Today, we have GeoTools and CADPower working on AutoCAD, BricsCAD, ZWCAD and ARES Commander.

We are seeing the fastest rate of growth on the BrcisCAD platform of these four platforms, overtaking AutoCAD last year.

Germany, Australia, India, United States, Canada, Netherlands & Belgium are some of the countries where we have a majority of our users.

In the UK, UAE, Brazil, and South Africa, we have a smaller number but a highly dedicated and loyal user-base.

Our focus remains in Europe, followed by the Americas and India.

One of the key changes we have made in V22 is the 18-month (April 2021-October 2022) long product life cycle.

We are changing the release date from the usual April-May to October. We are doing this to coincide with the BricsCAD release, which happens in October each year.

The earlier date (April) was set to coincide with the AutoCAD release date, and the shift to October reflects the importance we attach to BricscAD as a platform of choice for the GeoTools-CADPower user.

However, from the standpoint of an add-on developer, Designsense is a platform-neutral company. We will support you equally to ensure that our products work well in your chosen CAD platform. We share a healthy professional developer relationship with the respective companies: Bricsys, ZWSOFT and Graebert GMBH and will ensure that our products run as expected on these platforms.

And finally, a minor pricing tweak. We are changing the base currency for our products from USD to EUR. The numeric value of each product configuration remains the same (so USD 260 is now EUR 260). The currency change reflects our commitment to be closer to the European market. In absolute terms, this is an 18% increase as per the current USD-EUR conversion. There are two factors to justify this:

1. It is a price revision happening now after 13 months. We did not revise prices in April this year when V22 was released.
2. This price stays till October 2022, until V23 is released. So, your investment at this price will take you until October 2022.

Now, there is a lifeline and date window during which you can still buy at the existing price. The price comes into effect from July 5th only.

You can purchase our products at the current USD prices till July 5th, 2021, and then we move on to EUR pricing.

At Designsense, we are committed to bringing for you the best of our products at a price point that is more than justifiable. The next 16 months is going to witness a huge growth in features of GeoTools and CADPower that would make this more than worth its money.

We are excited and hope the same from your side as well! We are keen to listen to you! Tell us what you need to see in GeoTools and CADPower.

Best Regards

Rakesh Rao