Company History
Nemetschek North America,Inc., is a wholly-owned subsidiary of European software giant Nemetschek AG. A global leader in design technologies, Nemetschek North America has been developing CAD software for the architecture, engineering, and construction; entertainment; landscape design; and manufacturing fields since 1985. VectorWorks, its flagship product, is one of the world's best-selling cross-platform CAD applications and has won many industry awards. The Nemetschek North America family of software includes VectorWorks Designer, Architect, Landmark, Spotlight, Machine Design, Fundamentals, and RenderWorks.
Since its beginnings in the mid-1980s as Diehl Graphsoft, Inc., the company has played a formative role in the computer-aided design (CAD) field, redefining the marketplace by setting a high standard for its products, constantly testing and refining them to surpass users' expectations. In the process, it has become an internationally respected leader in both CAD and Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology. The company created one of the first CAD programs, one of the first 3D modeling software programs, and the first cross-platform CAD application. Nemetschek North America was also one of the first to introduce BIM capabilities, before BIM became an industry buzzword.
Nemetschek North America initially made its mark as the first company to aggressively market a high-quality, easy-to-use CAD program through mass-market channels. Historically, CAD products have been a low-volume, high-margin market; however, the inherent economies of scale offered by the company's market approach have made its highly competitive price/performance ratio possible. For this reason, Nemetschek North America continues to offer the same powerful CAD software technology used by industry giants for significantly less money. This is also why VectorWorks is the best-selling CAD program for the Macintosh, and since becoming cross-platform in 1996, has emerged as the new CAD standard on the Windows platform, too.
With the spring 2000 merger of Diehl Graphsoft, Inc. and Nemetschek AG of Munich, Germany, into Nemetschek North America, Inc., the company became Nemetschek AG's largest U.S. subsidiary, joining the parent company's network of more than 40 branches and subsidiaries throughout Europe. Sean Flaherty, who serves as CEO of Nemetschek North America, has focused the company on establishing global market leadership. That agenda involves development of new products, entrance into new markets, and expansion into service areas once not considered as viable options.
Another outstanding feature of Nemetschek North America's corporate identity is what Macworld magazine called its "nearly fanatical devotion to responsiveness to customers." The company's hands-on training seminars and multimedia training CDs provide users with a variety of learning tools for the software. Formal user groups have been developed throughout the country and are provided with the tools they need to customize VectorWorks to meet their individual needs. The company has also helped third-party developers create VectorWorks-specific products.
More than 400,000 designers rely on VectorWorks technology. They include world-renowned architects, prestigious landscape architects, award-winning entertainment designers, innovative product designers, and many more. Each day, VectorWorks products are put to work in more than 85 countries in nine languages. Besides English, VectorWorks products are currently available in Japanese, German, French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Norwegian.
Nemetschek N.A. has had increasing success over the past 20 years, becoming an internationally respected leader in CAD software for the personal computer. The newest upgrade to the VectorWorks family of software, the VectorWorks 2008 product line, was released in September 2007.