JoshPlumSE
Structural
- Aug 15, 2008
- 10,511
Sorry for the misleading title. I am NOT going to be returning to RISA.
However, I have always kept an eye on the company, their social media posts. And, visited their booths when I was at a structural engineering conference. I noticed recently that one of their posts used a term like "It's time to Return to RISA".
blog.risa.com
I'm genuinely curious if this post is indicative that a lot of people have moved away from RISA's Software? If you are one of those people, I'd be interested in hearing why you've lessened your RISA use?
In the interest of saving us from long explanations / rants, maybe we can categorize categorize reasons people have left RISA or dramatically reduced it's use:
a) Cost / Value: Meaning that the cost has been increasing and you no longer see the value with the software.
b) Changes in licensing: Meaning that you prefer to "own" your software and will continue to use your old hardware key and you don't want to have the type of yearly subscription / rental that software companies seem to like:
c) You don't like the newer RISA interface or find it hard to use.
d) The quality has gone down. This could be the quality of the software, the technical support staff. The quality of development (i.e. buggy software or an inability to develop features you want to see). Even just a general feeling that the company is going in the wrong direction.
e) Changes in industry or the type of projects you work on.
f) You never really liked it and you moved on just because you had an opportunity and you seized it.
Important Caveats:
However, I have always kept an eye on the company, their social media posts. And, visited their booths when I was at a structural engineering conference. I noticed recently that one of their posts used a term like "It's time to Return to RISA".
Engineering Tomorrow: Hidden Costs of Manual Calculations
Discover the hidden costs of manual calculations and see how RISA boosts efficiency, accuracy, and profitability in structural design.
blog.risa.com
I'm genuinely curious if this post is indicative that a lot of people have moved away from RISA's Software? If you are one of those people, I'd be interested in hearing why you've lessened your RISA use?
In the interest of saving us from long explanations / rants, maybe we can categorize categorize reasons people have left RISA or dramatically reduced it's use:
a) Cost / Value: Meaning that the cost has been increasing and you no longer see the value with the software.
b) Changes in licensing: Meaning that you prefer to "own" your software and will continue to use your old hardware key and you don't want to have the type of yearly subscription / rental that software companies seem to like:
c) You don't like the newer RISA interface or find it hard to use.
d) The quality has gone down. This could be the quality of the software, the technical support staff. The quality of development (i.e. buggy software or an inability to develop features you want to see). Even just a general feeling that the company is going in the wrong direction.
e) Changes in industry or the type of projects you work on.
f) You never really liked it and you moved on just because you had an opportunity and you seized it.
Important Caveats:
- I worked for RISA for something like 17 years and was (essentially) the VP of Engineering, Tech Support & Training when I left RISA. That was more than 7 years ago when the original owner sold the company to some big European (German) conglomerate with a name that I refuse to remember or spell. My time ended with a some hard feelings between me and the current CEO (Amber Freund).... who is pretty close to the only employee still working for RISA from my time under the previous owner.
- I now work for one of RISA's biggest competitors (Computers and Structures Inc which writes the SAP, ETABS and numerous other programs). My employer doesn't know anything about this post and in no way encouraged me to write any of this.
- I would fully understand if people felt like this post isn't an honest attempt to connect with you all on social media about a company / software that we (who follow this forum) all care about in some form. However, that is my motivation.... To better understand where this company has gone wrong... or if they haven't gone wrong and I'm misinterpreting the "It's time to return to RISA" post.
