ProjectNet: old technology?

A bit late in the day, I know, but I just came across an article by Susan Smith in US online publication AECweekly dated 25 July 2005. Entitled "Where Integration and Customization are Key", the piece is built around an interview with Chris French, senior product manager at Citadon. If I were a customer or end-user of the old ProjectNet solution, this would make slightly worrying reading.

It describes briefly the US origins of ProjectNet and the emergence of Citadon CW. Following a string of mergers between the various US players, it became clear that a completely new product needed to be developed, based on more advanced technology. Built on a web services architecture, Citadon CW therefore superceded ProjectNet from 2001 onwards (in other words, it infers ProjectNet is ‘old’ technology). Then, talk about faint praise….

"ProjectNet is still alive and well and has several customers worldwide. In contrast, CW has open architecture and the best functionality which lends itself to integration and customization.

So, just “several customers worldwide”, and an architecture that is neither open nor open to integration or customisation! Just in case you missed the point, Mr French underlines the differences.

"The biggest differences are in the integration and customization capabilities. …, ProjectNet has a set of standard processes …, like RFIs, meeting minutes, punch lists, change orders, etc. which are primarily targeted toward AEC, and there are some administrative capabilities to set up who has the rights to set up all those actions and processes. In ProjectNet, you use the forms that are built in there, whereas in CW you have the ability to modify the forms any way you want."

"Upgrade releases for Project Net are still available as mostly maintenance releases."

In October 2004, Citadon released a new, lower-cost version of ProjectNet for small teams (ProjectNet STE) which is positioned as an introduction to online collaboration and allows users to migrate eventually to Citadon CW – but not, it appears (though I may be wrong), to ProjectNet.

With the apparent demise of Bidcom UK, ProjectNet is now mainly resold in the UK through E-box, being focused on the PFI market for health and education projects (among others) as PFINet.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2005/09/projectnet_old_/

3 pings

  1. […] CW is the successor of ProjectNet (see my 30 September 2005 posting: ProjectNet: old technology?). In the US, its successes seem to be based on adoption as an enterprise solution in large […]

  2. […] products (including Bidcom’s venerable ProjectNet – see 30 September 2005 post: ProjectNet: old technology?), the merged business developed a new product, Citadon CW (Collaboration Workspace) targeting […]

  3. […] However, Rock was less successful at convincing buyers to choose ProjectNet for standard collaboration projects. There was much more competition from other vendors in this field; many experienced industry clients, contractors and consultants had already identified alternative vendors (4Projects, BIW, Business Collaborator, etc); and these other systems were proving more sophisticated than ProjectNet. This is hardly surprising. ProjectNet, after all, was already becoming dated; it was originally launched by BluelineOnline in 1998; it had already been superceded within Citadon’s product portfolio by Citadon CW, an enterprise-class solution launched in January 2002; and it was further challenged in October 2004 when Citadon released a new, lower-cost version of ProjectNet for small teams (ProjectNet STE) which it positioned as an introduction to online collaboration and allowed users to migrate eventually to Citadon CW (not ProjectNet) (see September 2005 post ProjectNet: old technology?). […]

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