FreeCAD likely helps Autodesk's position - when freecad is so crap, you will likely just pay for autocad/or/other than even looking at alternatives, because you have been already so frustrated.
No way - you would have to teach all your employees - new software, and existing know-how templates will be all gone. Plus compatibility issues with your sub contractors would be nightmare.
Productivity lost by adopting new tools would render firm non-competitive in this thin margin business, will likely make your P/L red.
Architect's margins are typically in 5-10%. Avg salary for architect is ~75-80k. They don't have the budget to even pay for small pilot or mvp, even if all 20+ firms pool their money together.
The domain knowledge + software engineer skills + computer graphics skills needed are extremely rare.
The moat autodesk has is surreal. In AEC atleast, students learn with Autodesk softwares in university and colleges.
The softwares (autocad, revit, maya, etc., many others) itself is complex, require domain know-how to build competing product. I don't see how anyone can compete with them anymore.
They have the industry by the balls, and they know it. Competing against Autodesk is like competing against Google in search.
It's disingenuous to claim you are not making money as landlord.
You are building equity - maybe your monthly profits are 0 early on, but your total value is increasing m/m. You can sell your rental property once your mortgage is paid off. If you back calculate your monthly profit is essentially ~ (selling price) / months owned.
The company is in Canada (engineering consulting firm, large-scale infrastructure projects - mining etc)
Role is mainly around data/modelling work in water resource group. I have done bunch of tech jobs (from backed development, modeler-ml) - so this is relatively new industry for me.