Kimon Onuma, founder of Onuma, a cloud-based BIM provider, points out a broader issue: Most of the exchanges being defined are based on exporting a file from one tool—in a format such as IFC—and then importing that file into the other tool.

“This is going to remain important for a long time, but  we must also start thinking more about transactional exchanges and model servers that can take some data from a monolithic model and share it with other tools,” says Onuma.

Marty Chobot, vice president of BIM initiatives for software vendor FM Systems Inc., Plainview, N.Y., echoes others when he says he does not think there will ever be a seamless exchange of models of different vendors. “The top objective for any vendor is to make sure that it is building products that align with customer needs,” he says.

“Time, money and resources are always in short supply,” Chobot adds. “While interoperability is one of these needs, there are often other requirements that take precedence.”