In order to make sure everyone is clear on our announcement I wanted to personally post a few comments. First, let me give a very brief overview of my background. As President/CEO of Eagle Point Software Corporation and one of the two founding Civil Engineers of our company I have over 26 years of experience in the civil engineering and surveying software market. Additionally, as the primary programmer of RoadCalc, our oldest and all-time most popular software product, I have vast amounts of experience working with the leading CAD systems (AutoCAD and MicroStation) through the years. And, from personally conducting hundreds of training sessions, I have learned a great deal about the practical use of technology from thousands of end users. To say that Eagle Point will become a "national dealer" of sorts for Civil 3D isn't really accurate. In fact, Eagle Point is, and has been, a member of Autodesk's Independent Software Vendor (ISV) program. We are an authorized Government Reseller and we have been a member of the Autodesk Developer Network (ADN) for approximately 20 years. It is true that we are standardizing on Civil 3D as our civil/survey development platform. However, it is not totally accurate to say that ""¦in approximately one year, Eagle Point products as we have known them will cease to exist." In fact, we will continue to offer our LandCADD (landscape architecture products) as well as our Data Reduction modules. These products are integrated within the Civil 3D platform and will continue to be offered. Recently we released LandCADD for Revit, Landsketch for Subdivisions and Landsketch for Highways. And, within about 15 days we will issue a press release announcing details of our next Civil 3D product - a new survey application that interacts directly with the Civil 3D data model. The major reason that we are retiring some of our products is because the old AutoCAD and MicroStation platforms have become antiquated. Just as the methods of completing civil engineering/surveying projects on the drafting board became antiquated with the advent of CAD, these older platforms have now lived their life. Civil 3D with its integrated building information modeling (BIM) capabilities provides a more robust, modern solution. We are proud of the Eagle Point legacy that has been built through our older, CAD based products. Now, as we continue to evolve, we pledge to continue that legacy by bringing you even better solutions running on Civil 3D, the most modern and powerful civil design system available.

We have 18 designers and 4 surveyors and had used Eaglepoint for 4 years and found it ok but it didnt match up to what we were seeing in our competitor's offices. So Mr. Biver's assessment is correct, it became antiquated. We switched to Powercivil since we were a Microstation shop. This product comes with 3d modeling tools and dynamic objects that react to change quite well. In this recession we have added some sitework clients to our portfolio and the Powercivil has handled this to our satisfaction. We deliver in an Autocad format and we can see exactly what the Autocad user would see because Powercivil reads/writes to the Autocad format. We do not regret the change and now we feel like we were ahead of the curve. TD

Really? Is that what is to return Eagle Point to greatness, Landcadd and Civil 3D? I am a very upset, long time EP user and I feel that maybe instead of selling "antiquated software" as Biver puts it, EP should have been writing something useful. I want my 8 years worth of subscription money back! JS

Not my job anymore but Michael has some demo seats coming of Carlson. We looked at the price difference in what it would cost to turn our Map seats into Civil 3D and AutoDesk priced themselves out of our budget. Frankly, we would be happing with EP14 on AutoCad as that was the best and fastest version they ever programmed. But we have kept paying the support for both AutoCAD and EP over the years. It has reached a point where it is not possible given our budget for capital outlay. I wish Mr. Bivers the best but I'll sure miss the old days of EP and their support. It will be a tough call for Michael and my city but in these economic times then another 40k per year is just not feasable. Deral in Lawton

Re: Ward, Biver and other comments. Ward's advice is especially timely. Since the transition from EP has to happen, why not take advantage of the current situation and economy. Autodesk's offer of "upgrade" to Civil 3D is widely publicized. Bentley has an aggressive offer as well. When making the decision, best to look at where the work is now, and in the future. If we look now, civil work is heavily influenced by transportation. Especially, rail, but road and highway as well. Keep in mind that 47 of the state DOTs are standardized on MicroStation for their CAD. And, that 46 states are standardized on either Inroads, Geopak or MX for design. Follow the money: Stimulus to state to DOT to civil consulting firm. Important these days to go where the money is.