Yesterday UK collaboration technology vendor BIW Technologies* announced that it had created a hosting infrastructure to support its clients in North America – a network that it expects to grow through a partnership with Sage Construction and Real Estate (Sage CRE).
This BIW announcement has been forthcoming for a while, since it is exactly two months (30 September) since business management software vendor Sage North America (regional arm of the UK-based Sage group plc), announced the launch of Sage Project Lifecycle Management (not to be confused with another PLM: product lifecycle management). According to the news release, Sage PLM is:
“a web-based collaborative project management service platform that simplifies an organization’s workflow by making all project-related information and documentation available online in a secure, centralized location. Sage Project Lifecycle Management was developed through a partnership with BIW® Technologies, a global leader in web-based business applications.”
Sage North America says it delivers software and services to over 2.9 million small and midsize businesses in Canada and the United States, and the Sage Timberline Office finance and accounting application is widely used by many construction and real estate companies.
Sage’s partnership with BIW therefore potentially provides a powerful marketing platform for the web-based BIW project control platform in north America. Sage CRE products are sold exclusively through Sage Business partners focused on the needs of small and mid-sized construction and real estate management companies. Thus BIW now has a network of industry salespeople looking to offer its platform as an integrated offering alongside Timberline. The prospect of linking project-based metrics with key business performance measures, with reporting and audit trail tools to help ensure compliance with financial, legal and regulatory requirements, could be attractive to many existing Sage Timberline users who have yet to embrace project collaboration or who have been looking for a more integrated service.
This is not BIW’s first venture into the north American market; its SaaS platform has already been deployed to support the team working on the new headquarters of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, WA, for example (see post). However, it marks a new and interesting phase in the expansion of non-US collaboration vendors into this market, following news last year that BIW competitor 4Projects was opening US and Canada offices in Houston and Calgary, and the establishment of Aconex outposts across the region (Germany-based conject also has a US office). The Sage/BIW alliance, though, means BIW doesn’t have to recruit new salespeople or open new offices; it can extend its reach widely across the continent with relatively little investment on the ground.
[* Disclosure: I worked for BIW Technologies Ltd from 2000 to early 2009, and still undertake occasional paid PR consultancy projects for the company.]
4 pings
[…] with UK-based 4Projects (post) and BIW Technologies (post), Australian company Aconex is rapidly expanding its operations in the US. According to a news […]
[…] However, it’s worth recording that the company recently announced launch of a suite of project accounting tools for architects and other consultants. Workspace Project Accounting enables online financial management and ledger integration “to deliver a unified view of actual and forecast costs and revenues, profitability and work in progress information”. Since its introduction at the end of 2009 seven practices –have adopted the suite, which also allows integration with Sage software solutions; Union Square has become a member of the Sage Development Programme (readers may recall that BIW Technologies has a commercial relationship with Sage in north America – see post). […]
[…] therefore, Aconex is adopting the approach of rival non-US providers (eg: UK-based BIW – with Sage CRE – and Asite – with distributor SaaS North America and the ReproMAX network) who have […]
[…] upon local partners and are trying different routes to market (BIW is working with Sage CRE – post – to build on its existing AEC financial software reseller network, while Asite is apparently […]