We are frequently asked the question: "why are you working on VersaCAD and what position can it have in the market against a dominant AutoCAD and the other 200 CAD products?". Our first answer is easy, "we want to find and support the more than 1000 entities which still use VtrsaCAD every day in their professional work". We have never had visions of trying to convert others to use VersaCAD if they are happy with their current CAD product. But, actually there are some sound business reasons why anyone doing production design drafting or mechanical drafting might want to continue with VersaCAD if they are already using it, or might be lead to VersaCAD if they are new to the field, or might even want to consider adding VersaCAD alongside their current CAD. Now, don't expect any baloney about icons or GUI or acronyms you don't understand. The reasons are all factual business reasons, not opinions or marketing hype. Lets look atjust a few of them:
First is cost. VersaCAD has the lowest lifecycle cost of any of the major, productive CAD software. At $895 for a new seat and $595 for a year of updates and support, the total cost is only about $120 per month for a new user compared to over $400 per month for AutoCAD, MicroStation or similar software. The cost to a continuing user is less than $50 per month.
Second is probably even more important: Productivity. It may be that the industry is so caught up in extraneous issues that we forget that the original and continuing purpose of CAD is to produce design work with fewer man-hours or more results per man-hour. With that in mind, we did a little test. We didn't have it audited, but, this is an easy one which you can do yourself.
Launch any CAD you have or are considering, make a drawing of a 6" x 4" plate with 4 equally spaced, 1" holes. Dimension the overall plate, the hole and the location of the holes from the edges of the plate. Round the corners of the plate and dimension the round. You will have a total of six dimensions, four circles, 4 arcs and 4 lines. Now, count the number of strokes necessary to produce that drawing. A stroke is a mouse click or a click of a keyboard key. Start from the desktop and count the strokes to launch the CAD program as well as to setup the file including units, etc. Trying my very best, AutoCAD LT 2000 took 40 strokes. MicroStation/J took 44 strokes. VersaCAD 2000 took 36 strokes. Using that simple analysis, VersaCAD is 11% more productive than AutoCAD LT 2000 and 22% more productive than MicroStation, if you accept that productivity is inversely proportional to number of strokes. If you don't like to use strokes to measure productivity, how about man-hours. MicroStation look 15 seconds to launch and 150 seconds to make the drawing for a total of 165 seconds. AutoCAD LT 2000 took 15 seconds to launch and 135 seconds to make the drawing for a total of 150 seconds. VersaCAD took 4 seconds to launch and 125 seconds to make the drawing, for a total of 129 seconds. So, based on total time, VersaCAD took 169bless than AutoCAD and 24% less than MicroStation. To test architectural work, we did a 30' x 30' floorplan with one door and 4 dimensions. The same sort of percentages as above were the result. Another measure is time to open the file after once saved. Here VersaCAD is the clear winner, taking 0.2 seconds to open the file vs. 1.5 sec for AutoCAD and 2.0 sec for MicroStation. We believe you would find more or less the same ratios as the drawings became more complex. Our point is, for production design drafting or mechanical drafting, VersaCAD is at least competitive, and perhaps even more productive than the other major CAD. Based on the above percentages, you could save a lot of money every year, doing hundreds of drawings, with VersaCAD.
Third is the time for new employees to learn the software. Coastline Community College did a controlled test and found that students learned more AutoCAD in a semester class of CAD that started them on VersaCAD, than the control group which learned only AutoCAD. Their reasoning: VersaCAD is so much easier to learn that students learned the concep ts faster and then were only faced with learning the different formats of AutoCAD. A new employee can be productive in VersaCAD after one day of training. It takes a minimum of two days for AutoCAD. VersaCAD makes good business sense.
When you take all these factors into account, no wonder so many have continued to use VersaCAD for all these years.