Articad

Professional Software for the Design Industry

ArtiCAD was founded in 1992 as a software provider for the kitchen retail sector and has since grown to become a major force in the KBB industry both in the UK and overseas. From offices in the UK, South Africa, Australia, Ireland and North America, ArtiCAD provides its CAD software to over 7,500 designers across the world.

The power and simplicity of ArtiCAD software led to it being one of the market leaders in the CAD industry and with that came a period of strong growth. ArtiCAD knew that in order to keep that period of expansion going, embracing new technology was crucial.

The Challenge

“Our major problem” explains Colin Seaton, Corporate Accounts Director at ArtiCAD, “was the way in which we handled licensing for our software. Because our software was installed locally to each designer’s PC, the update process required each user to run software updates and patches manually. For some of our larger corporate customers with hundreds of users spread across the world, the lack of unified rollout meant that each showroom was running different versions of ArtiCAD and hampered business continuity.”

It was clear that ArtiCAD needed to find a new way to handle their software licenses. They began looking for new technology to improve efficiency.

“We tried issuing server licenses but this meant individual companies managing their own delivery. For many, this simply wasn’t a viable solution.”

In the end, ArtiCAD was recommended entrust IT Group by one of entrust’s existing customers. Upon engaging with entrust IT Group, ArtiCAD decided that they would be the best partner to drive their business forward.

The Solution

entrust IT Group offered a new option for ArtiCAD’s software delivery: The Cloud. ArtiCAD software and data was moved to secure, cloud based servers owned and managed by entrust IT Group.

By hosting ArtiCAD in the cloud, designers are now able to access the software via an internet portal. This can be accessed anywhere, at any time, on virtually any device – even tablets.

The Cloud delivery of ArtiCAD was offered by entrust IT Group as a completely white-labelled service, allowing complete discretion. To the end user, there is no evidence to suggest that anyone other than ArtiCAD is providing the hosting.

Whilst issues relating to the hosting of ArtiCAD are extremely rare, any issues that should arise are handled by support engineers at entrust IT Group, removing the need for ArtiCAD support engineers to be involved and freeing them up for more pressing issues.

The Benefits

“The addition of a Cloud hosted offering of ArtiCAD has given us the ability to offer something that our competitors struggle with.” Continues Colin. “Whilst we would have moved to the Cloud eventually, partnering with entrustIT significantly sped up this process. The entrust IT Group hosting solution has definitely given us an advantage over our competitors.”

By moving the software hosting to secure, cloud-based servers owned and managed by entrust IT Group, ArtiCAD became able to offer their software over the internet – saving cumbersome downloads and providing a unified rollout of updates and patches to all their users simultaneously.

All issues relating to the hosting itself are handled by entrustIT’s dedicated support team. entrust IT Group also manage the rollouts of updates and patches.

“The support we have received from entrustIT has been first class at every turn. The management team are always very engaged with us and always looking to move the partnership forward. The support team are switched on and handle things very competently, confidently and professionally.”

By leveraging new technology, ArtiCAD are offering a number of exciting new features. For example, using Augmented Reality (AR) ArtiCAD designers are now able to show customers designs in 3-Dimensional space.

ArtiCAD have recently joined a German-based ERP group with an annual turnover of around 130 Million EUR.

“Our corporate market is expanding at a rate of knots, and advances in technology are what is going to drive us forward.” Colin concludes “Our partnership with entrustIT has been really successful in aiding our expansion.”