NEWSLETTER

MasterFormat '95 and BSD

The CSI Board of Directors voted on June 16, 2009 to cease support and licensing of the 16-division MasterFormat ‘95 as of December 31, 2009. What does this mean for BSD’s customers?

BSD SpecLink-E, the newest version of BSD’s award-winning specifications software, will be released in November of 2009 and is available only in the 50-divison MasterFormat 2004 (MF04). BSD CostLink/AE, which includes data from RS Means, is also available only in MasterFormat 2004.

New customers will not have the option to continue using MasterFormat ’95, because BSD’s new products will not include data in that format. However, existing customers will continue to have the option to revert to the older, 16-division format in BSD SpecLink+, which will not be discontinued for at least a year after BSD SpecLink-E is introduced.

BSD is an early adopter of MasterFormat 2004 and participates on the MasterFormat Maintenance Task Team (MFMTT), which is made up of building information providers – all of whom have converted to MF04. We endorse the new 50-division format and urge all our existing customers to make the switch as soon as possible, if they have not already done so. Approximately 50% of our customers are already using MasterFormat 2004, and BSD has changed the default format in BSD SpecLink+ to encourage the rest of our customers to adopt MF04. For those customers who insist on using the older, obsolete format, SpecLink+ will continue to include the switch that allows instant conversion of projects to MF95, but this option will no longer be available when BSD discontinues support for BSD SpecLink+ at some point in late 2010 or early 2011.