Category: Internet

Could Google disrupt the construction IT market?

Vannevar Website

With a hint of Google Genie out of the bottle, could the search giant overtake the established AEC IT giants? Last month, I retweeted and bookmarked an Israeli news article suggesting Google technology could halve construction costs (a story also subsequently picked up by UK magazine Construction Manager – Is Google planning a BIM-busting app for construction?). The …

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Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2013/11/could-google-disrupt-the-construction-it-market/

Global SaaS and delivering a good user experience

instart logic

Could AEC SaaS collaboration vendors deliver zero-wait web experiences to their end customers on any device and over any type of network? Last week at Bentley Systems‘ Year in Infrastructure conference in London (see previous posts), I listened to a couple of case studies about the use of its collaboration suite ProjectWise – for example, …

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Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2013/11/global-saas-and-delivering-a-good-user-experience/

Viewpoint establishes US data centre for 4Projects

4Projects‘ parent Viewpoint Construction Software has extended its commitment to the UK-developed SaaS-based project collaboration solution, already being heavily marketed in north America (post), by opening a new data centre in the US. The facility will improve performance for 4Projects users among Viewpoint’s North American project collaboration customers and provide more flexibility on their data hosting options. …

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Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2013/08/viewpoint-establishes-us-data-centre-for-4projects/

Mclaren launches CAFM Explorer OnAir

The Facilities Show is at the NEC in Birmingham, UK this week (last day today) – a good place for firms to make announcements to their FM audiences. This week, for example, McLaren Software – describing itself as a provider of “engineering document control, project collaboration and CAFM (computer aided facilities management) solutions” – has …

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Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2013/05/mclaren-launches-cafm-explorer-onair/

Collaborative design management – still evolving

The development of the World-wide web during the 1990s started a technology change across architecture, engineering and construction and facilities management that continues to this day. For an often geographically-dispersed, multi-company project delivery team, the ability to send messages and associated attachments electronically was attractive, but email was not the magic bullet that design teams …

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Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2013/04/collaborative-design-management-still-evolving/

M-Six VEO launched

M-Six VEO-overview

Offered as both a Software-as-a-Service and on-premise solution, M-Six’s VEO BIM application doesn’t yet compete with document and project management platforms, but it may do one day…. At last October’s Newforma user conference in London (post), I first heard about Oregon, US-based M-Six‘s VEO platform (with Newforma Project Center, this enabled a building information model to be …

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Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2013/02/m-six-veo-launched/

DesigningBuildings: a wiki in progress

DesigningBuildings article on architectural ironmongery

I have been interested in the potential use of wikis in the construction industry since the early 2000s, and have long regarded them as collaborative tools, with people collectively creating and improving content. Wikipedia is, of course, the most well-known wiki project (one of several from the Wikimedia Foundation). I am a long-time Wikipedian, and …

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Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2013/02/designingbuildings-a-wiki-in-progress/

Bentley ProjectWise to get more ‘cloudy’ with Bentley Connect

I first encountered Bentley ProjectWise when writing a case study about its use by London-based DLG Architects in 1999, and the product has been in my peripheral vision almost ever since. While my main focus over the past decade has been on Software-as-a-Service, I know ProjectWise has been widely used as a locally-hosted solution for …

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Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2012/11/bentley-projectwise-to-get-more-cloudy-with-bentley-connect/

COMIT #MobiBIM conference pushes cloud-based data and tools

I attended COMIT‘s latest conference, on BIM and Mobility, at London’s Building Centre on Thursday, and tweeted a lot of the event highlights (my ‘co-tweeter’ Su Butcher helpfully created a great Storify stream where you can see the event unfold). As usual with COMIT events, the conference was a healthy mix of construction people and technology …

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Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2012/11/comit-mobibim-conference-pushes-cloud-based-data-and-tools/

HP SaaS drawing storage set to expand (and integrate?)

Reprographic hardware corporation HP launched its SaaS-based cloud storage service, ePrint & Share nearly two years ago (post), and has continued to market itself to UK users ever since (I wrote about its Android app launch in May 2012). I was invited to a launch event at the RIBA in London today (24 September), where it announced: “the …

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Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2012/09/hp-saas-drawing-storage-set-to-expand-and-integrate/

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