Monopolies & Platforms

Allister Lewis of ADDD.io presented at the Arch_Manu talk series and it started me thinking about monopolies and platforms. Which do you think is the most beneficial for the AEC industry?

Our early twenty first political economic system of choice, Capitalism, has some key assumptions baked in; firstly, it expects reinvestment of profits into innovation, and secondly it thrives on competitive success and failure. On the one hand, Capitalism accelerates innovation as companies compete to survive, while on the other, it tends to produce monopolies as competition ultimately results in a winner. The consequence is that the spoils go to the fortunate few, and others are left behind. Monopolies exist in all industries, but particularly in software development. The likes of Microsoft, Google, Apple etc actively buy out competing companies and in some cases then close them down. In the case of the big three companies mentioned, innovation continues as they compete amongst themselves, however, In the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry, there is only one big monopoly, Autodesk.

Autodesk make some excellent products, but they are not quick to innovate, because they have no reason to; they know their users will continue to use their products because they are invested in the software. The problems that the AEC industry face are dynamic and in some cases unknown, monopolies are not dynamic and cannot keep up with the rate of change. As a result, architects and engineers increasingly cannot rely on Autodesk to bring new software abilities into practice that address cutting edge issues, such as reliable carbon calculators or circular material tools. This is why Allister Lewis has developed the Automated Data Driven Design (ADDD.io) marketplace to help AEC professional find and vet small scale innovative software solutions. The ADDD.io platform approach provides the antidote to the monopoly as it links to many interacting softwares that address specific architecture design and delivery issues. A single software will not have any effect on a monopoly, but a platform of interoperable softwares will. Autodesk are taking notice and are making efforts to develop new software and capabilities, but is it too late with increased smaller softwares, or will they simply buy out the successful offerings over on ADDD?