Category: Business/Financial

Nov 23 2010

Risk reduction or scare-mongering?

By Paul Wilkinson in AEC, Business/Financial, Collaboration, Functionality, Legal, People issues, SaaS, Vendors
23 November 2010

New guidance from Wren Insurance on “cloud technology” seems pessimistic and even outdated. In this post, I take a detailed look at how construction collaboration technology vendors have, since 2000, responded to similar objections. Legal issues of collaboration In 2004, David Whitton of Wren Insurance, one of the UK construction industry’s leading providers of professional …

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2010/11/risk-reduction-or-scare-mongering/

Nov 19 2010

First StoreData, then iSite, now S&W Intelligence

By Paul Wilkinson in AEC, Business/Financial, Collaboration, Marketing, Vendors
19 November 2010

The UK-based collaboration technology subsidiary of property services firm Styles & Wood is set to take on its third brand-name in under a year, reports Building. Previously known as StoreData, the business (a reseller of Union Square’s Workspace platform, with some good retail and banking customers) was rebadged as iSite in April 2010 (post). Now …

banking, Building, construction collaboration, Intelligence, iSite, retail, S&W, StoreCare, StoreData, StoreFit, StorePlanning, Styles & Wood, UK, Union Square, Workspace
1 comment

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2010/11/first-storedata-then-isite-now-sw-intelligence/

Nov 06 2010

Incite innovates

By Paul Wilkinson in AEC, Business/Financial, Collaboration, Extranet/CDE, Functionality, Future, Marketing, Mobile, People issues, SaaS, Vendors, Web 2.0
6 November 2010

Australia-based construction collaboration technology vendor Incite is developing a lot of new and innovative functionality, and – having grown its business in south-east Asia – is, as I predicted last year, inching towards establishing a presence in Europe. My latest meeting (previous – post) with Michael Baker, Incite’s general manager (technology), included a first encounter …

Aconex, agile, Android, API, application programming interface, Asite, Australia, Bing Maps, Blackberry, buildings, CAD, civil works, cMob, Construction, construction collaboration technology, correspondence, drag-and-drop, drawing register, Drop Zone, email client, Europe, file sharing, Gartner, geo-location, Germany, Google Earth, high-resolution aerial images, highways, Hong Kong, hosting, Incite, Incite Keystone, India, Indonesia, infrastructure, integration, interfaces, iPad, iPhone, JSON, Kalexo Teamwork, Keystone Toolbox, Leighton Holdings, licensing, Malaysia, map data, metadata, Michael Baker, Microsoft, mining, mobile, Nearmap, Nielsen, open-source, OpenStreetMap, Outlook, photographs, PivotViewer, probity, quality, rail, rationalisation, Remix, reporting, RESTful, RIM, SaaS, Scott Crane, Sean Kaye, service level agreements, Silverlight, Site Clean-Up, SmartBuilder, social stream, south-east Asia, Spatial, support, Sword CTSpace, tablet devices, tendering, timeline, UK, users, water supply, Web 2.0, Windows Mobile 7, XML
2 comments

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2010/11/incite-innovates/

Nov 05 2010

A first look at EADOC

By Paul Wilkinson in AEC, Business/Financial, Collaboration, Extranet/CDE, Functionality, Future, Marketing, SaaS, Vendors
5 November 2010

I recently did a GoToMeeting session with Eric Law of EADOC to get a clearer understanding of this US-based Software-as-a-Service construction collaboration platform. The system is mainly aimed at construction project teams operating in north America, and has been around since early 2006 (I first wrote about the business in late 2007). It was developed, …

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2010/11/a-first-look-at-eadoc/

Nov 01 2010

Business steady at Sword CTSpace?

By Paul Wilkinson in AEC, Business/Financial, Collaboration, Extranet/CDE, Marketing, SaaS, Vendors
1 November 2010

Monitoring the construction collaboration technology businesses formerly known as Buildonline and Citadon since the combined CTSpace operation was acquired by France-based Sword Group SA in late 2007 (post) is not easy, particularly when companies get merged with other, unrelated operations. From a close reading of various annual reports and some company feedback, I believe the …

Achiever, AEC, Austria, BuildOnline, BuildOnline UK, Citadon, compliance, Construction, CTSpace, Energy, EPP, France, FusionEnterprise, FusionLive, George Britton, Germany, in-house, India, Infotechno, insurance, Intech, Ireland, John Pomeroy, on-demand, onstruction collaboration, profitability, recession, risk management, SaaS, Software-as-a-Service, Sword Group SA, Sword Soft Limited, Sword UK, UNIT4, USA, Utilities

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2010/11/business-steady-at-sword-ctspace/

Oct 19 2010

Pessimistic Unit4’s revenues down, but profits up

By Paul Wilkinson in AEC, Business/Financial, Collaboration, Future, Marketing, Vendors
19 October 2010

Unit4 Collaboration Software (until February 2010 known as Business Collaborator – post), the UK-based provider of construction collaboration technologies (and other applications) recently filed its annual report and accounts for the year to 31 December 2009 at Companies House. This time last year (post), the company’s directors were not optimistic about their ability to deliver …

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2010/10/pessimistic-unit4s-revenues-down-but-profits-up/

Oct 19 2010

Senubo to launch early 2011

By Paul Wilkinson in AEC, Business/Financial, Collaboration, Future, Marketing, Mobile, People issues, Vendors, Web 2.0
19 October 2010

Not strictly a collaboration solution, more an expertise-oriented social network, start-up Senubo is set to launch in early 2011. Yesterday I attended a half-day workshop organised by the Construction Productivity Network focused on how to get the UK construction industry to deliver “more for less” – a topical ambition given that tomorrow the government is …

Carlow, collaboration, Conor Heffernan. Belfast, construction collaboration technologies, Construction Productivity Network, Eddie Horkan, email, foundations, handheld application, ICT, intranets, Ireland, knowledge management, LinkedIn, mobile, piling, Senubo, Social Media, social network, start-up, Terradrive, Twitter, Web 2.0, wikis, Yammer

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2010/10/senubo-to-launch-early-2011/

Oct 14 2010

CAD in the cloud – needs selling on the ground

By Paul Wilkinson in AEC, BIM, Business/Financial, Collaboration, Functionality, Future, Marketing, People issues, SaaS, Vendors
14 October 2010

Software-as-a-Service approaches to design in the AEC market can learn a lot from how SaaS has been deployed to provide construction collaborative platforms since the late 1990s, but the marketing challenges still tend to require more than just an online presence. CAD in the cloud Thanks, once again, to Roopinder Tara’s, CAD CAM CAE TenLinks …

4Projects, Aconex, AEC, Autodesk, Bernard Charlès, BIMaaS, BIW, CAD, CADaaS, Catia, cloud, construction collaboration, Dassault Systèmes, design, Develop3D.com, Enovia, hosting regime, marketing, Martyn Day, PLM, Roopinder Tara, SaaS, sales, self-service, Software-as-a-Service, SolidWorks, TenLinks Daily, Woobius

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2010/10/cad-in-the-cloud-needs-selling-on-the-ground/

Oct 04 2010

Collaborate – via your printer

By Paul Wilkinson in AEC, Business/Financial, Collaboration, Functionality, Future, Marketing, Mobile, People issues, SaaS, Vendors
4 October 2010

Hewlett-Packard has rarely featured in ExtranetEvolution.com – which is hardly surprising as HP is mainly known in architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) circles as a provider of print hardware solutions, not collaborative software applications. Indeed, I learned last week that there are now around 1.5 million HP DesignJet large format printers in use, and that …

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2010/10/collaborate-via-your-printer/

Sep 23 2010

Yechte Consulting: managing offshore design costs

By Paul Wilkinson in AEC, BIM, Blogs, Business/Financial, Collaboration, Functionality, Marketing, Mobile, People issues, SaaS, Vendors, Web 2.0
23 September 2010

Earlier this week at the RIBA in London I had coffee with Ben Tellin, a trained architect and managing director of Yechte Consulting. His company, with bases in London and Bangalore, India, provides off-shore outsourcing services to architects and engineers (often adding an international dimension to the network of people already collaborating on a UK …