Last year was a really difficult time for our customers.  I’d like to note that during this difficult economic time for all of us, “Vico did the right thing.”  We upgraded anyone who had invested in our solutions to our next generation platform, Vico Office, for no charge!

What? A software company that did not charge anything for a significant upgrade and enhancement to their solution?  Wow!  Take a bow Vico R&D!
 
The purpose of this memo is to clarify the evolution from Constructor/Constructor Pro licenses into Vico Office Licenses; furthermore, to clarify the option of moving from Single User Licenses (SUL) to floating licenses.
 
Background
We originally distributed our software in two primary packages:
 1. Constructor Package included:
     a. Constructor modeling program;
     b. Estimator;
     c. 5D Presenter
 2. Constructor Pro Package included:
     a. Constructor modeling program;
     b. Estimator;
     c. 5D Presenter;
     d. Control scheduling program;
     e. Change Manager  (Doc Set Manager)
In addition we offered Vico Control  and Vico Change Manager as standalone products.
 
Vico Office Strategy
About five years ago, we began to develop a BIM-neutral platform that would enable our users to generate 3D – 4D – 5D output from numerous modeling platforms. A significant aspect of the plan was to:
 1. Provide our customers more flexibility by integrating with multiple modeling platforms,
     as well as the current estimating and scheduling technologies they have in place;
 2. Break up the multiple capabilities that had been wrapped into Constructor and
     Constructor Pro into a modular system so that our customers could customize Vico software
     to fit their needs;
 3. Increase the ease-of-use of our products by providing a user-friendly interface and clearly
     outlining a step-by-step model-based workflow in the solution.
 
The Upgrade to Vico Office
As the Vico Office platform began to take shape, we decided to offer the Vico Office solution to our existing customers at no additional cost.
 
How Did It Work?
Any customer that was up-to date on their annual maintenance would automatically receive the appropriate single-user licenses of Vico Office as a free upgrade.
 
With that said, Vico Office will have significantly more functionality than provided in the 2008 Vico Constructor Suite.  In addition, Constructor, Constructor Pro, Control, and Doc Set Manager were only available in SUL format, and our customer base was demanding Floating License capabilities which we introduced in Vico Office.
 
Converting Licenses
The schematic below depicts the conversion of Constructor and Constructor Pro licenses into their equivalent Vico Office modules:

Converting SUL to Floating
All 2008 Vico products were only offered as a single-user license structure. Vico Office provides our customers the opportunity to support multiple users with a floating license structure. Moving from a single-user set-up to a network (floating) set-up requires  a upgrade/conversion fee.

Establishing the right mix of Floating Licenses is directly dependent upon the number of users expected at any given time. We recommend starting with a conservative amount and then adding Floating Licenses as they become needed.
 
Accessing the Vico Office Modules on the Network
The Vico Office Floating system relies upon the client piece of software, called Vico Office Client.  The Vico Office Client is a desktop piece of software. Each user who would like to access the other Vico Office Modules on the network will need to have the Vico Office Client installed locally on their machine.  As the user accesses specific modules, the Client “checks out the licenses” for those modules. When all Floating licenses for any given module(s) have been “checked out” the user receives a message from the system indicating a license is not available.
 
Wow, free!