Kaco,
I'll admit to being a little biased towards FMDesktop over Archibus. I can clear up a couple of items from your thread here.
1. FMDesktop is an Autodesk product. FM:Systems is a separate company, unrelated except that they are an Autodesk development partner to work with AutoCAD.
2. The work order portions of FMDesktop are not going away. We actually are developing new capabilities in the work order system right now.
3. If you are an FMDesktop 6.0 user and had a current maintenance agreement from the previous owners, Applied Spatial Technology, you should have been converted to Autodesk subscription. That would make you automatically eligible to get the new version 7.0 at no cost.
4. Comparing FMDesktop and Archibus is a little like asking car guys why they like one brand over another. It really depends upon your criteria. Big picture: FMDesktop is lower cost, easier to install and use, and has data integration with Revit and ADT. Archibus is more enterprise focused, more highly configurable.
5. If you are already using ADT for space inventory, it's a piece of cake to move that into FMDesktop. And you are already using one of the key features of FMDesktop -- the relationships between equipment and spaces. Wouldn't there be value in extending your equipment topology to the spaces in your inventory? There's a really neat feature in FMDesktop that lets you display the dependencies between equipment and spaces and include that graphic in a work order.
6. Similarly, your facility managers or space planners can do markups in FMDesktop without having to go to CAD. That might help your need for "evaluation and proposals."
If you want to see how easy it is to use, get in touch with an FMDesktop reseller and ask them to import some of your ADT data into FMDesktop 7. Let them prove it to you.
Mark Evans
Autodesk
Mark Evans
Senior Product Manager
AEC Division, Simulation Product Line
Autodesk, Inc.