This week’s Bricsys Insights press event showed off some of the capabilities of the Chapoo AEC collaboration platform and underlined the growing importance of BIM. This week, I attended a Bricsys Insights event held at the headquarters of the Ghent, Belgium-based engineering software developer. Much of the event focused on the company’s BricsCAD and BricsCAD BIM applications, plus …
Category: Extranet/CDE
Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2017/04/chapoo-acts-as-bim-model-server/
Apr 13 2017
VPO: Microsoft 365-based project management
Microsoft moved to the cloud somewhat grudgingly, but its Office 365 product suite has enabled firms to offer cloud-based Sharepoint for construction collaboration. A prolonged and unremittingly poor experience with Microsoft SharePoint in the early 2000s probably prejudiced me against any notion of using SharePoint as the basis for a construction collaboration platform. This proposal was something …
Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2017/04/vpo-microsoft-365-based-project-management/
Feb 07 2017
BC QuickStart launched
Reading, UK-based GroupBC, provider of the enterprise-class Business Collaborator and BC Assure platforms, is looking to command an increased share of the building information modelling common data environment market by launching an SME-friendly version of its CDE platform. BC QuickStart has been specifically designed, GroupBC says, to help SMEs adopt the standard practices of BIM, ensuring …
Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2017/02/bc-quickstart-launched/
Nov 12 2016
Ordot dump closure showcases Bentley EADOC
California, USA-based EADOC was acquired by Bentley Systems in March 2016, and the process of assimilating this cloud-based construction management application into the Bentley suite of products began. I talked to EADOC founder Eric Law soon after the acquisition and again at Bentley’s 2015 Year in Infrastructure conference in London and also heard about the …
Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2016/11/ordot-dump-closure-showcases-bentley-eadoc/
Nov 01 2016
Newforma: collaboration more important than ever
Collaboration is now more critical than ever as British firms look to other global markets to understand how best to adapt post-Bexit, says Newforma. I talked to Newforma co-founder Jim Forester when he was in London recently. With the UK political establishment still in turmoil after the EU Referendum result, and the construction industry concerned …
Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2016/11/newforma-collaboration-more-important-than-ever/
Oct 14 2016
Saas budget management with Budget4cast
Launched in the US at the recent Construction Management Association of America (CMAA) conference in San Diego, California, is a new cloud-based project budget management application, Budget4cast. Denver, Colorado-based CEO Bryan Carruthers (a career project manager turned AEC software entrepreneur) believes it’s something of a unique product, which he says generated a lot of interest and …
Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2016/10/saas-budget-management-with-budget4cast/
Sep 26 2016
BuildBinder CIMS
Watching the US Software-as-a-Service construction collaboration space, I recently discovered another startup – San Francisco, California-based BuildBinder – targeting the construction project management sector. (Despite the similarity of names, I don’t think it has any connection to another Californian business, close-out documentation specialist Combinder, which I covered in April 2016; I have also written a few …
Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2016/09/buildbinder-cims/
Sep 05 2016
Newforma gets connected
Silos (both company and IT) have long inhibited collaboration in construction. Newforma’s ‘Connector’ strategy seeks to break them down. I recently wrote (16 August: Newforma now playing cloud catch-up?) about Newforma’s Cloud Services initiative, which has seen the vendor expand its extranet-type capabilities, complementing its original core on-premise, behind-the-firewall application. I spoke last Thursday to Newforma CEO …
Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2016/09/newforma-gets-connected/
Aug 16 2016
Newforma now playing cloud catch-up?
It’s over 10 years since my first posts about US-based construction provider Newforma, and during the intervening decade the company has executed a gradual, but now almost complete, about-turn. In June 2006, Newforma was dismissive of cloud-based applications: senior executives described project extranets as “digital landfills” and insisted that we now call Software-as-a-Service had no traction in …
Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2016/08/newforma-now-playing-cloud-catch-up/
Jul 21 2016
Union Square acquired by Deltek
In an echo of an earlier US/UK acquisition in the construction IT space, ERP vendor Deltek has acquired UK project management software vendor Union Square. Mostly, ExtranetEvolution focuses on Software-as-a-Service solutions and related applications in the architecture, engineering and construction sector. However, I do keep an eye on vendors whose software solutions occasionally either compete …
Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2016/07/union-square-acquired-by-deltek/













