Sean Flaherty, CEO von Nemetschek Nordamerika, ist seit über 25 Jahren in der CAD-Branche tätig. Wie kaum ein anderer steht er dabei für das Programm Vectorworks, denn er gehörte schon 1985 zu den Mitentwicklern der renommierten Software. DETAIL-Redakteur Tim Westphal nutzte die Chance auf der diesjährigen Deubau in Essen, mit Flaherty zu sprechen und ihm einige persönliche Statements zur aktuellen, aber auch zur zukünftigen Entwicklung von Vectorworks, BIM & Co. zu entlocken.
Hier das Interview auf Englisch:
Mr Flaherty, could you please tell us something about yourself and your plans for Vectorworks...
I am currently CEO of the Vectorworks brand division within Nemetschek/Nemetschek North America. I started working on the product in 1985 as one of the original developers, and steadily worked my way up to the product team. We were a very small company, and as the company grew I increasingly acted as product manager and went on to become CTO. The founder of the company retired 5 years after the company was sold to Nemetschek and I became CEO. I have been CEO for 5 years now, and brought with me a really strong product focus. I think our focus on product technology and on customers drives the company forwards.
You launched the first of the CAD-solutions in 1985. Is that correct?
Yes, we – Vectorworks – used to be called MiniCAD, and originally it was a 3D Macintosh-only program. I was hired to add the second part, i.e. the drafting part, to the product.
Does that mean you came from Vectorworks and not from the Nemetschek Group?
Correct. We were called "Diehl Graphsoft" between 1985 and 2000, and in 2000 the company changed its name from Diehl Graphsoft to Nemetschek North America. Shortly before that MiniCAD had been renamed Vectorworks. So MiniCAD 7 subsequently became Vectorworks 8.
It was changed in the early 90s?
You mean the name? Yes, in 1997.
How long have you been CTO?
Before the acquisition, I was vice-president of engineering. When we became Nemetschek, I became CTO, so really it was just a title-change rather than a position-change. I was the original developer, as you know. Rich went on to manage the business, and then I took over the R&D teams. So it's been pretty much 25 years of working with the same technology and customer base that MiniCAD and Vectorworks were selling to.
Software development and processes have changed over the years. Would I be right in saying, however, that the cooperation and contact with the other divisions of the Nemetschek Group is closer than ever before?
Of course, yes.
Could you describe the way in which the internal cooperation works?
Essentially the company is organized as a holding-company. It therefore has 10 major brand divisions that are operated independently. Each one has a different CEO in charge of the strategy for that product line. When they acquire a company – like they did when they acquired us or when they acquired Graphisoft, the company doesn't change from one day to the next. The brand value, therefore, is pluralism. One of the strengths of the Nemetschek Group is that it tries to come up with a single solution for every customer and every industry. It allows its individual divisions to take a different strategy to meet customers' needs. In the case of Vectorworks, the R&D teams have stayed relatively unchanged. As far as high-level communication is concerned, twice a year the heads of all the technical teams meet and exchange R&D information.
Hier das Interview auf Englisch:
Mr Flaherty, could you please tell us something about yourself and your plans for Vectorworks...
I am currently CEO of the Vectorworks brand division within Nemetschek/Nemetschek North America. I started working on the product in 1985 as one of the original developers, and steadily worked my way up to the product team. We were a very small company, and as the company grew I increasingly acted as product manager and went on to become CTO. The founder of the company retired 5 years after the company was sold to Nemetschek and I became CEO. I have been CEO for 5 years now, and brought with me a really strong product focus. I think our focus on product technology and on customers drives the company forwards.
You launched the first of the CAD-solutions in 1985. Is that correct?
Yes, we – Vectorworks – used to be called MiniCAD, and originally it was a 3D Macintosh-only program. I was hired to add the second part, i.e. the drafting part, to the product.
Does that mean you came from Vectorworks and not from the Nemetschek Group?
Correct. We were called "Diehl Graphsoft" between 1985 and 2000, and in 2000 the company changed its name from Diehl Graphsoft to Nemetschek North America. Shortly before that MiniCAD had been renamed Vectorworks. So MiniCAD 7 subsequently became Vectorworks 8.
It was changed in the early 90s?
You mean the name? Yes, in 1997.
How long have you been CTO?
Before the acquisition, I was vice-president of engineering. When we became Nemetschek, I became CTO, so really it was just a title-change rather than a position-change. I was the original developer, as you know. Rich went on to manage the business, and then I took over the R&D teams. So it's been pretty much 25 years of working with the same technology and customer base that MiniCAD and Vectorworks were selling to.
Software development and processes have changed over the years. Would I be right in saying, however, that the cooperation and contact with the other divisions of the Nemetschek Group is closer than ever before?
Of course, yes.
Could you describe the way in which the internal cooperation works?
Essentially the company is organized as a holding-company. It therefore has 10 major brand divisions that are operated independently. Each one has a different CEO in charge of the strategy for that product line. When they acquire a company – like they did when they acquired us or when they acquired Graphisoft, the company doesn't change from one day to the next. The brand value, therefore, is pluralism. One of the strengths of the Nemetschek Group is that it tries to come up with a single solution for every customer and every industry. It allows its individual divisions to take a different strategy to meet customers' needs. In the case of Vectorworks, the R&D teams have stayed relatively unchanged. As far as high-level communication is concerned, twice a year the heads of all the technical teams meet and exchange R&D information.
It's meant as a kind of a melting pot of ideas more than anything else. There is currently no strategy to, say, shut down the R&D team in Hungary or in the United States, or to merge them at a single location. There were some synergies at the start, however. For example, we set up an outsourced R&D team in the Nemetschek Bulgaria office immediately after acquisition. The company used to be wholly owned by Nemetschek. Now it's been spun out and is only 20%-owned by Nemetschek - an example of use of the Group's existing R&D reach. At the top level we've all agreed on a few key strategies that apply to all the products. The IFC push is one big example. The teams meet to exchange IFC information and best practices, and work very closely on making sure that there is an open standard for the marketplace.
If you remember, 3 years ago we signed a partnership with Adobe. As a result, I think our products now have best PDF capabilities around. We have another open standard for exchanging information. But as far as specific R&D tactics or strategies to meet customer needs are concerned, these are still individual to each division. Where there are synergies, however, these are used wherever possible. We, for example, are working closely with the Maxon and Scia (structural engineering software) R&D teams and have a number of initiatives to exchange information and proof compatibility between the products because we see some clear customer workflows supported by those group products. That's something I think that has changed within the group, and particularly over the last few years has seemed to be accelerating.
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