Category: Collaboration

Sep 04 2007

StoreData results

By Paul Wilkinson in Business/Financial, Collaboration, Extranet/CDE, Vendors
4 September 2007

The latest financial reports from retail fit-out specialist contractor Styles & Wood show that its StoreData division, which competes in the UK construction collaboration technology (aka ‘extranet’) field, did not have a good first six months in 2007. While overall group revenues and profits were up, StoreData “as expected … had a slower first half than last …

AEC, B&Q, Business Collaborator, Co-Operative, Nationwide, StoreData, Styles & Wood, Tesco, UK

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2007/09/storedata-resul/

Aug 22 2007

DWF v. PDF – an Autodesk interview

By Paul Wilkinson in AEC, Blogs, Collaboration, Functionality, Future, Internet
22 August 2007

In my book, I discussed Adobe and Autodesk’s development of different file formats to manage design data (it’s a topic I have since returned to – here for instance). I have just found an interesting interview on the Novedge blog with Autodesk’s Mary Hope McQuiston regarding the DWF format – a similar interview having previously been undertaken with Adobe’s …

Adobe, Autodesk, DWF, Novedge, PDF

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2007/08/dwf-v-pdf-an/

Aug 22 2007

Aconex in Australia shares court row

By Paul Wilkinson in Business/Financial, Collaboration, Extranet/CDE, Legal, SaaS, Vendors
22 August 2007

The tranquil world of online construction collaboration is not normally rocked by claims of political or financial feuds, but Aconex has unfortunately got caught up in an Australian court wrangle which features two well-known state politicians. Background Aconex was founded by Leigh Jasper (son of National Party MP Ken Jasper) and Rob Phillpot, with initial financial backing …

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2007/08/aconex-in-austr/

Aug 21 2007

ConstructHub

By Paul Wilkinson in AEC, Collaboration, Extranet/CDE, Functionality, Marketing, SaaS, Vendors
21 August 2007

From the European side of the Atlantic, the US market appears able to sustain numerous companies offering various different flavours of AEC-specific document management and online collaboration. Thanks to AECcafe.com, I have just added another Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider to my list: ConstructHub. Based in Tempe, Arizona and formed, it says, by a group of experienced …

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2007/08/constructhub/

Aug 16 2007

Data Builder

By Paul Wilkinson in AEC, Collaboration, Extranet/CDE, Functionality, SaaS, Vendors
16 August 2007

On holiday last month, I read the excellent Bill Bryson book, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, about Bryson’s boyhood years growing up in Des Moines, Iowa. Today, thanks to a comment from American Reader on a recent EE post, I had a look at the website of US document management software vendor …

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2007/08/data-builder/

Aug 08 2007

People, processes and technology

By Paul Wilkinson in Collaboration, Extranet/CDE, Functionality, Internet, People issues
8 August 2007

Attend almost any AEC industry conference or seminar where construction collaboration technologies are discussed and you will usually hear something to the effect that successful collaboration is 80% about people and processes and only 20% about the technologies involved (in my book, I even ventured that the balance could be more like 90/10). This type of guidance …

AEC, BIM, collaboration, Construction, Expesite, extranet, manufacturing, people, PLM, process, Retailworks, technology, UK, US, VICORP
1 comment

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2007/08/people-processe/

Aug 08 2007

Suster leaves Salesforce.com

By Paul Wilkinson in Business/Financial, Collaboration, People issues, Vendors
8 August 2007

Mark Suster, one-time CEO of UK construction collaboration vendor BuildOnline (now CTSpace) has apparently left on-demand CRM business Salesforce.com, only four months after it acquired his Koral business (see post). I’ve seen it rumoured (Twitter) that Mark has joined a venture capital firm in Los Angeles.

BuildOnline, CTSpace, Koral, Mark Suster, VC
1 comment

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2007/08/suster-leaves-s/

Aug 06 2007

Valuing a SaaS business

By Paul Wilkinson in Collaboration, Extranet/CDE, SaaS, Vendors
6 August 2007

Last week, I briefly speculated on how you value an IT business, skimming across several alternative approaches before focusing on the ‘precedent’ approach in the context of UK construction collaboration software vendor 4Projects’ MBO. I did suggest being a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business might improve its valuation, but I didn’t know by how much. Over the weekend, however, …

4Projects, AEC, collaboration, Construction, extranet vendor, SaaS, Software-as-a-Service, UK

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2007/08/valuing-a-saas/

Aug 03 2007

Causeway acquires Elstree Computing

By Paul Wilkinson in AEC, Collaboration, Future, Vendors
3 August 2007

With my July holiday and the MBO at 4Projects, another event in the UK construction computing world almost slipped under my radar. Causeway Technologies (vendor of Causeway Collaboration) acquired Elstree Computing (ECL – with its own Information Manager document management and collaboration solution) last month (see Causeway news release). “With over 2,000 customers and employing 150 …

AEC, Causeway Technologies, collaboration, ECL, Elstree Computing, UK
1 comment

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2007/08/causeway-acquir/

Aug 03 2007

More on the 4Ps MBO

By Paul Wilkinson in AEC, Collaboration, Extranet/CDE, SaaS, Vendors
3 August 2007

This week’s management buy-out of 4Projects was reported in north-east England newspaper The Journal this week. The 1 August report, Wear IT specialist out to double its revenue, adds little to the news releases on 4Projects‘ and August Equity‘s websites, though it does revise last year’s turnover figure downwards by £200k to £3.2m from that previously reported in …