Upcoming changes to ELPROCAD ic

ELPROCAD ic adds support for IntelliCAD

2024-06-26 (edited 2025-09-02)

Around the turn of the millennium, when the ELPROCAD ic product was first introduced to the market, there was only support for AutoCAD ® as a CAD program. The original meaning of ​“ic” in ELPROCAD ic was ​“IntelliCAD” — a consortium of companies that have a deep partnership with the ​“Open Design Allicence” (which also includes Bricsys/​BricsCAD, among others) regarding technology for handling the DWG format. In the end, however, BricsCAD was chosen as the CAD program in ELPROCAD ic and thus had to adopt the meaning ​“Integrated CAD” instead.

Over time, the development of BricsCAD has progressed at a rapid pace but not always in areas that are important to ELPROCAD. BricsCAD is still a very competitive and affordable alternative compared to AutoCAD ® but as the price picture has changed significantly, we are beginning to find it difficult to offer our entire intended customer segment an affordable and simple CAD tool. We therefore believe that the time is ripe to develop an ELPROCAD ic version that also supports an IntelliCAD-based product.

At present, we are evaluating three different IntelliCAD-based alternatives that all have different advantages and disadvantages. The idea is that we will choose the option that works best with ELPROCAD both now and in the future. The focus will be on:

• Full compatibility with current DWG drawings and projects
• Speed and technical advantages
• Smooth integration with ELPROCAD functions
• Simple and easy to manage license management
• European manufacturer (w.r.t. data protection/​EU GDPR compliance)
• Minimal change in the user interface
• An expected future high price stability

The new IntelliCAD-based product will then be integrated and tested over a 2‑year period and then purchased and distributed to customers with Service Agreements for ELPROCAD ic within the framework of the current Service Agreement where no additional costs are incurred.

During the next two or three years, we will release new versions of ELPROCAD ic that are still based on BricsCAD. The new IntelliCAD version will first be tested by a small number of pilot customers. When the new IntelliCAD version is available to all customers with a Service Agreement, they will be able to choose between continuing to run BricsCAD V25 as before or starting to use our new IntelliCAD-based CAD program.

Those customers who are not interested in the new IntelliCAD-based CAD program can choose to convert to a Service Agreement for ELPROCAD bc where BricsCAD is the CAD program in the same way as has applied for the past 20 years. In connection with contract renewals in quarter 4, we will ask all customers if they wish to convert to ​“ELPROCAD bc Service Agreement” or continue with their current ​“ELPROCAD ic Service Agreement”.

When the new IntelliCAD version is available, new ELPROCAD licenses will be sold and rented in three different variants:

ELPROCAD ic - IntelliCAD-based(also BricsCAD V25 for owned licenses) with a lower pricing compared to the current ELPROCAD ic for new purchase and rental licenses. Especially the price of new network licenses, we expect to be able to reduce significantly within a few years compared to current new prices.

Our goal is that the price of the Service Agreement for ELPROCAD ic will thus not be increased for a 5‑year period (during the period 2025 — 2029).

ELPROCAD bc — BricsCAD-based version with a price picture of new licenses just like current ELPROCAD ic prices.

Customers with ELPROCAD bc service agreements for BricsCAD should budget for price increases that follow the price changes from Bricsys on an annual basis. In 2023, Bricsys increased the prices of network products by 33% compared to the previous year, which led to price increases on ELPROCAD ic in that year.

ELPROCAD ac — AutoCAD-based CAD software with exactly the same price picture as current ELPROCAD xt on new licenses

Customers with Service Agreements for ELPROCAD xt for AutoCAD are not significantly affected by these changes except that the product will be renamed ​“ELPROCAD ac” in about two years.

We believe that our new IntelliCAD-based version will take the next step in integrating even more closely with the ELPROCAD application, lead to great simplifications and improvements around updates and conversions of licenses and also be able to maintain the relatively low price picture.

New versions of ELPROCAD on the way

We also have a lot of other things going on, such as a new ELPROCAD version with a redesigned user interface, support for BricsCAD V23 and new exciting document management functions (DMS) with support for Microsoft Sharepoint ® and Autodesk Vault ®. We have also managed to recruit new skilled staff working on system development, requirements specifications and product documentation. In connection with this, the development team has been gathered in its own company: ELPROCAD AB, which manufactures the software that PROCAD Systems AB then distributes and sells both directly and in collaboration with other resellers.

If you have any questions regarding these exciting changes, please contact me at info@​elprocad.​com or call me on +46 21 816001 to book a Teams meeting.

We will come out with more details and a link to a FAQ with answers to frequently asked questions in the fall before the contract extensions that take place starting in quarter 4 this year.

Rickard Jonsson
CEO, PROCAD Systems AB