A new home for SketchUp
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@marvins_dad said:
Can we please have just SKETCHUP on the banner. No @Last, no Google, no Trimble..etc?
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What bothers me the most is the loss of Google. I was a big advocate for Google sketchup to kids and now I have to push Trimble Sketchup?
I doubt the product will survive the loss of Google, a worldwide Mega name.
I liked sketchup because of Google, they stayed out of the way. I doubt Trimble can afford sketchup to be run by users.
Eventually it will be just another product on the marketplace.
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@tallbridgeguy said:
I doubt the product will survive the loss of Google, a worldwide Mega name.
SketchUp was doing all right before Google...
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I'm guessing Trimble will launch v9. I just hop google didn't lose it because they hit the wall with performance issues. Im thinking google dropped it for a reason perhaps they have their own 3d software on the horizon or they just didn't achieve their google earth aims.
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@pbacot said:
One Google tie-in that I have really liked is "Add Location" inside SU. Hoping that continues to develop.
Add Location and other key geo-location features (like Terrain) aren't going anywhere -- being able to effective geo-locate models and do site analysis is a big deal!
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If the guys that develope your favourite software are genuinely excited about a new direction then I'm really stoked about this.
Everyone that is involved in this community has helped shape SketchUp in some way. I imagine the Pro version is now gonna be crazy.
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@solo said:
John, you and the team moving too?
Yes- I'm moving to Trimble, along with the rest of the SketchUp team. They are building us a nice new office across town here in Boulder.
john
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[quote="tallbridgeguy"]
I liked sketchup because of Google, they stayed out of the way. quote]Google did not stay out of the way of SU development. If anything, they were very much in the way. Its the main reason we saw many tools developed for Google Earth like building maker, integrated road views, enhanced Photo Match, Add Location (direct integration with Googles Terrain and Map servers)....all released with SU 7 and 8.
Thanks
Daniel Tal -
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@unknownuser said:
If the guys that develope your favourite software are genuinely excited about a new direction then I'm really stoked about this.
That's the way I see things as well.
If they had announced an SU buy-out that involved telling the devs to sling their hook, then I'd be worried and start looking at Blender or selling a kidney in order to buy 3DS Max.
For now I'm excited about what the future will bring......although it is something of a nervous excitement.
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Technically it is still for your Google SketchUP Needs as the latest extant software is Google SketchUp v.8
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I totally missed this thread until now. Wow!
I havent heard of Trimble before but from what you guys have written could it mean a better landscape modelling solution?
Just hoping they'll release v9 with some features that will make us belive in SketchUp's future again... -
I feel like I've seen this show before, with other acquisitions of a generalized tech by very vertical entities. So I'm not getting really warm fuzzies about this. With apologies to Mark Harrison, who is an amazingly great person (I had the pleasure of getting his assistance with a user group meeting), and John Bacus (who is also wonderful, and gave a lovely presentation to our group), I'm just not buying the "nothing will change" line. I hope that I'm wrong, but consider - under what circumstances is SU helping Trimble's bottom line?
The "success metrics" for SU are determined by its owner. Google clearly sought to profit from SU in a pretty oblique fashion, although their mission for SU was kind of unclear to me (does this mean that they're going to kill off Earth, or some features of it, too?). Trimble, on the other hand, will definitely be looking more directly at the bottom line. Thus, we can assume that almost everyone that uses SU today, and isn't at least a potential Trimble client, is going to get leftovers. Unless, of course, that new developments overlap between Trimble clients and everyone else. And it could be that such overlap is very large, as we have little insight into what Trimble actually is seeking to get out of this. Or it could be the opposite, which is what I'd expect.
I expect that the PR efforts will be to keep users and plugin devs from bolting initially (because the devs seem to be part of the value equation for Trimble), and it'll be business as usual for a while. Perhaps even a long while. We might even see SU9 land in a form that's effectively the same as what a Google-owned SU would have been (as it must be pretty far down the road at this point).
But eventually I expect the hammer to drop. Trimble does (or doesn't) do something that's a deal-breaker with the community. And then the community either finds a new tool, or creates one.
Is it time for all the dev rock-stars to create CloneUp? I'd imagine that a Kickstarter campaign for that purpose would raise tankers of cash to do so. I already have my wallet out
One thing to note that may inspire some positivity, from the Trimble press-release: "The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2012, and it would not be material to Trimble's 2012 earnings." Q1 GAAP earnings were in the $40mm range, so it'd appear that the transaction between Google and Trimble was mostly or entirely cashless. Might mean that the deal came with (user-friendly) strings. Let's hope so.
And lastly, I do need to acknowledge that both Mark and John are both stand-up guys, and as much as I tend to be a Cassandra, I cannot ignore my (contradictory) feeling that I find it very unlikely that they'd mislead us in any way. And that might render all of my fears moot.
This is entirely my own uninformed opinions, and should only be considered as pure speculation across the board.
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@jbacus said:
(ps: just so you guys know, there are 64-bit (and multithreaded) members of the SketchUp team sitting together in a room reading these posts.)
I'm already liking the move...
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I'll condense my feelings in a single phrase:
I'm worried because Trimble does not seem to be about design at all, but only boring engineering stuff like GPS and such.
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