From time to time, I get asked about non-UK collaboration vendors operating in mainland Europe. I can talk with some knowledge about Munich-based Conject (see The conject interview) and Madrid-based Bricsnet (see The Bricsnet interview), but otherwise I generally struggle.
However, a little bit of this information gap has recently been filled with respect to Belgium. I have exchanged communications with Marc Ansoult about AsBuilt (which he described to me as “the ‘Belgian Buildonline’ but built on OpenText” – the same enterprise content system, LiveLink, used by UK-based Causeway for its collaboration application) and its successor Exquando.
It appears AsBuilt was a construction collaboration technology consultancy venture run by Marc and other people within BIAC, the company operating Brussels Airport, and today is a business unit of Fujitsu Services. The main service offering was groupware based on OpenText’s LiveLink, with Cimmetry’s AutoVue used for drawing mark-up and commenting. From the content of its press pages, it looks like it won quite a few projects in the early 2000s (for clients including Dexia Bank, Fortis Bank, Alstom Power and Hydro, Fabricom, GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals and Solvay) but not much from about 2005 onwards.
As AsBuilt withered, Exquando was formed by Marc and ex-GSK IT executive Dara Duong in late 2009 and appears to be a consultancy focused on delivering professional content services, including information management. No technology partners are mentioned on the website (yet), so presumably the team are still evaluating potential vendors they can work with.
