Tecnoserve, a regional software and technology solution provider, has recently released a new designing software BricsCad V7, which it says will enable engineers, distributors architects and design companies in the Middle East to legally own an effective alternative to the more expensive AutoCad.

BricsCad V7, produced by the Belgium-headquartered BricsCad, will sell for less than 10 per cent of the price of AutoCAD. The software uses the industry standard AutoCad DWG as its native drawing format to read and write AutoCad DWG directly without any conversion, says a spokesman for the company.
“The high cost associated with buying legally licensed computer software is the driving force behind software piracy and with the low cost of cracking and replicating software, the piracy market remains very lucrative despite the adoption of international treaties on copyrights and anti-piracy laws. These high costs have also helped drive open source software applications as a viable alternative to expensive licensed software,” says the spokesman.
“Market surveys carried out by BricsCad have showed that an increasing number of companies in the region are using pirated copies of AutoCAD mainly because of its high cost and this has encouraged BricsCad to continually develop and upgrade its software package,” he adds.
“We already have a number of users in the Middle East and their feedback has been very encouraging,” says Erik De Keyser, founder and CEO of BricsCad. “We are very pleased to have companies like Dar Al Handasah, Adnan Saffarini Engineering Consultant and National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC) as BricsCad users.”
Commenting on the use of pirated software, De Keyser says that companies and even individuals face serious legal risks when using illegal or pirated software but with high prices associated with buying or licensing software, especially in specialised industry segments such as building and construction, buying legal software becomes a major cost element.
Explaining the efficiency of BricsCad, De Keyser says that like AutoCAD, “the product’s native file format is DWG and you can open and save AutoCAD files without any conversion or data loss. Users can continue working on drawings that were started in AutoCAD and freely exchange files with AutoCAD users. BricsCad is seen as an ‘almost clone’ of AutoCAD and users get the functionality they need. Not only that, the user interface is made in a way that a CAD operator trained on AutoCAD will fully master BricsCad after a few hours without any additional training.”
According to the Business Software Alliance, a leading organisation dedicated to promoting a safe and legal digital world, software piracy levels in the Middle East declined last year, with the UAE leading the way with the lowest piracy rate in the region.
“Government support to anti-piracy campaigns has been crucial in making this possible. Despite this substantial progress, the focus should consistently be rendered to overcome the many challenges and to bring regional piracy levels to the global average by all. Our company’s product is sought to even reduce the rates of software piracy reported in the Middle East,” he noted.
“Although government support to anti-piracy campaigns has been crucial in making this possible, the focus should remain on overcoming the many challenges and to bring regional piracy levels to a global average.
BricsCad has a proven track record in developing design software and delivering top-notch CAD technology, and is active in 54 countries with a worldwide network of dealers that contribute in sales and support. Today BricsCad has more than 35,000 customers throughout the world,
Tecnoserve is the operator of BriscCad’s Middle East software portal (www.cadresources.net) and a leading distributor of the company. Presently implementing a complete project management solution for Dubai Municipality, Tecnoserve has also teamed up with a number of local and international software developers to provide applications needed by the region’s striving construction industry.