Category: Functionality

Software incompatability sours 2012 effort

The office copy of Contract Journal finally arrived today and ‘The Foreman’ writes about British professionals at Mace and Laing O’Rourke involved with the 2012 Olympics developments getting disgruntled with the money being spent on their American colleagues. He then adds: Tempers have also flared about computer systems. My man said: “They are trying to …

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Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2008/05/software-incomp/

Cadweb tries to catch-up

The latest news release from UK construction collaboration technology vendor Cadweb – who describe themselves as “the longest and oldest, established project extranet provider in the UK” [just how long is Cadweb?] – shows that Cadweb has finally woken up to functional advances made by most of its UK competitors several years ago. Cadweb says it plans to add several …

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Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2008/05/cadweb-tries-1/

Desktop tools

UK construction collaboration technology provider Asite is now offering a desktop application, Asite Navigator, integrated with its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering. The tool is described by Asite as “an innovative client application (ie: installed on your PC) that removes the need for you to manage files manually between your office and your collaboration environment”. In short, …

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Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2008/04/desktop-tools/

Microsoft: SaaS update

It’s difficult to avoid talk of Microsoft at the moment, what with talk of its (stalled?) bid for Yahoo (post) and recent falling profits; what interested me last week was news of Microsoft beginning trials of web-based Office, and its later Live Mesh announcement. Here’s a quick update…. Web-based Office According to the Times: Microsoft is poised …

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Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2008/04/microsoft-saas/

ViaNovus: a little background

Further to yesterday’s post on ViaNovus, here’s a little more background on the latest US company just acquired by Sword. Founded in about 1998 as the Paragon Company in California, the business was co-founded by Darrell Garrett and Arthur Bart-Williams, with backing from angel investor Michael Fields, of New Vista Capital (Bart-Williams later left the …

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Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2008/04/vianovus-a-litt/

Sword Group acquires ViaNovus

The Sword Group – parent of CTSpace, the construction collaboration technology provider that used to be known as BuildOnline and Citadon (see various posts) – has announced (see release) its acquisition (no transaction value given) of US-based ViaNovus and its Paragon suite of construction management products. Another version of the release adds ViaNovus will be operated as a unit of …

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Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2008/04/sword-group-a-1/

Getting Won Over

There is a good case study on the use of ‘extranet’ technologies (aka construction collaboration technologies) in the latest issue of UK industry weekly Building magazine. Getting Won Over, by Stephen Kennett, details the experiences of UK-based property developer Hammerson, supported by Gleeds Collaboration Services, in using the collaboration platform from BIW Technologies [my employer]. Hammerson’s previous …

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Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2008/04/getting-won-ove/

SaaS-based BIM

I have talked about web-based collaborative BIM technologies a few times over the past year or so (see Asite BIM last year and SaaS and construction collaboration in 2008, for example), and just had to post a link to an interesting article by Kenneth Wong in the latest Cadalyst. The summer of BIM describes a collaborative effort involving “a …

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Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2008/04/saas-based-bim/

Information meltdown

There’s been lots of talk about the credit crunch – now, techies are talking about the ‘broadband crunch’, apparently. Yesterday’s Observer newspaper had a feature, Video boom threatens to gridlock the internet, which said that “the amount of data travelling across the internet is growing so fast that the network could become overloaded and grind …

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Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2008/04/information-mel/

Site Waste Management Plans and collaboration platforms

  In England, Site Waste Management Plans (SWMPs) will become a legal requirement this weekend – from 6 April 2008 – and will affect anyone procuring, designing, planning or managing a construction project costing more than £300,000, plus suppliers to the construction industry, and environmental regulators ie: local authorities and the Environment Agency. Awareness of the …

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Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2008/04/site-waste-mana/

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