Jan 21 2010

20% of firms will own no IT assets by 2012

A fifth of enterprises will hold no IT assets by 2012 as cloud computing and mobile working practices become commonplace, Gartner predicts (reports Information Age).

Technologies such as ‘cloud computing’ and virtualisation within the enterprise will result in a fifth of businesses owning no IT assets whatsoever by 2012, says Gartner research, with more and more firms using third parties to manage data and services, and with employees using their own laptops or smartphones for work purposes. This, Gartner forecasts, will mean scaling back or reallocation of enterprise IT budgets, while vendors will be forced to reconsider their own strategies.

Of course, this trend has already been under way in some firms in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry – which, more than most industry sectors, is highly fragmented and reliant upon having a large proportion of mobile workers. As a result, construction was among the early adopters of mobile telephones, its use of laptops is high, and it has also been a successful market for some software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications – notably construction collaboration platforms. As SaaS has become more and more commonplace, early reservations about the wisdom of holding data and applications ‘in the cloud’ have been eroded, and the focus is often more about which solution to use rather than ‘in-house or web-based?’. Indeed, this experience of SaaS even encouraged some AEC businesses – like Taylor Woodrow (post) 18 months ago – to go a stage further and opt for cloud-hosted office applications.

There also appears to be an inference in Gartner’s forecasts that vendors who are targeting enterprises to sell enterprise-class, in-house solutions will find it increasingly difficult. Instead it suggests businesses will be looking for applications that can be managed either by their hosting partners or by the vendors themselves and which can be easily accessed by employees from laptops and/or smartphones. However, we are not yet at a stage where sophisticated applications such as CAD or BIM applications can be easily managed on a cloud-based architecture, so the Gartner vision may take a little longer to materialise across the AEC sector.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2010/01/20-of-firms-will-own-no-it-assets-by-2012/

Jan 19 2010

First Toolbox, now Teambox

Last September I blogged about Incite‘s new application Toolbox, and – courtesy of ReadWriteWeb – I have now come across a strikingly similar application with a strikingly similar name: Teambox, which describes itself as a Twitter-like project management tool.

When I reviewed Toolbox, I described it as “Twitter, but with file-sharing”, and Teambox seems to fit the same kind of niche, albeit without being specific to the requirements of professionals in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry.

Incite were aiming to provide Toolbox integration with Twitter, but Teambox appears ready to stand-alone (perhaps it might be integrated with enterprise Twitter-type applications such as Yammer? – see post), being offered both as a web-hosted system or as a solution that corporates can host on their own servers. Teambox is a free and open source project, but the local-hosting option is a paid-for feature, as is customer support and white-labelling.

Hopefully, the sniff of competition in this micro-blogging/micro-collaboration space will stimulate Incite to accelerate development of Toolbox.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2010/01/first-toolbox-now-teambox/

Jan 18 2010

The Bricsnet interview

Having been impressed by Bricsnet‘s marketing during the dot.com boom years, I followed developments sporadically (mainly because the ProjectCenter extranet product was not heavily marketed in the UK), and have only mentioned the company in this blog a handful of times over the past four years – most recently last November (posts here and here). However, following contact then from Cristina Niculescu, head of Bricsnet’s collaboration tool ProjectCenter in Europe, I thought it would be useful to find out more about the company, its history, the role of ProjectCenter, the competitive landscape for collaboration technologies in Spain, and so on….

  1. I first heard of Bricsnet’s SaaS offering ProjectCenter about 8-9 years ago (I remember the website had a fantastic Flash animation). Originally founded in 1998, it was based in Belgium, I think, and later acquired French collaboration company Constructeo. Can you give me a brief history of the company from its early days?

Founded in 1986 in Belgium, Bricsnet was originally focused on developing advanced software for the design process. In 1999, Bricsnet moved towards innovative Internet-based technologies for design and construction processes and went public. During the two subsequent years the company expanded through acquisitions, among which the most representative were: a US-based project extranet technology (now called ProjectCenter) and a Real Estate Lifecycle Management solution (in what is today Bricsnet Enterprise). Already back in 2000, Bricsnet pioneered the vision of providing an integrated platform to support not only design and construction phases, but the subsequent management throughout the building’s lifecycle.

This end-to-end integrated solution evolved over the years into a specific market discipline known as IWMS (Integrated Workplace Management System), as defined by the Gartner Group who has been monitoring this space and publishing its yearly Five Magic Quadrants reports.

In 2002, a new panel of European-based investors bought Bricsnet’s assets, de-listed the company, relocated to San Francisco, US and focused its operations into the technologies that were meant to fulfil the company’s ultimate mission: Real Estate Workplace Automation.

Over the last four years, Bricsnet achieved leadership position and so was recognized consistently by Gartner Group as “Leaders” in its annual IWMS report.

Bricsnet’s headquarters are based in San Francisco and the European operations are carried out from the main office in Madrid, Spain.

  1. Was there further M&A activity along the way?

There were no additional M&A activities beyond 2002 while the company focused its development capital into fuelling organic growth and around serving the corporate real estate market.

Bricsnet has finally evolved into a company controlled by a single reference shareholder (TORIMBIA), which increased over the years its equity position to its current 75%–thus showing a continuous longer-term backing of Bricsnet. TORIMBIA is a Spain-based ca. US$1 Billion privately held and family-owned holding group, with business interests in real estate, retail gas distribution, global credit card payment processing and other minority investments.

Bricsnet is no longer a VC-backed company but a long-term strategic investment within the industrial portfolio of TORIMBIA and it is led and managed directly by TORIMBIA’s own executives.

  1. Can you describe the scale of Bricsnet’s business? (I’ve seen 2008 sales given as $7.2m, and a total of 70 employees – not sure if that was just US, or a global total).

Bricsnet is a private company integrated within the portfolio of a family-owned holding and, following its shareholders’ strict rules and policies, does not disclose any details regarding its revenues, profits or other company financial aspects.

  1. Of those sales, how much is attributed to ProjectCenter as opposed to real estate management systems Bricsnet Enterprise and Bricsnet Retail? Is the ProjectCenter business generating a profit, and how has it grown in recent years?

ProjectCenter global business accounts for approx. 20% of the company’s revenues. This revenue breakdown stays in line with the fact that our core business revolves around IWMS through its flagship product: Bricsnet Enterprise and Bricsnet Retail.

Noteworthy, Bricsnet Enterprise includes a project management module that to some extent may be comparable to ProjectCenter, but is targeted at customers that view construction as a business process within the management of a larger real estate portfolio.

From a strictly AEC project collaboration standpoint, ProjectCenter has been a profitable business for the last four years and it has grown steadily, albeit modestly. It registered a rapid take-off from 2001 through 2005 followed by stable and slight growth rates since then.

  1. Bricsnet has offices in the US and Spain – approximately what proportion of ProjectCenter business comes from the US and what from Europe? And, apart from Spain, in which other European countries are there significant ProjectCenter user communities?

ProjectCenter overall business results are almost equally split between Europe and the US. Through our offices in the US and Spain we offer a global service and support operations in several countries around the world. Within Europe and besides Spain, France and Switzerland are other countries where there is a higher concentration of projects and ProjectCenter users.

  1. What types of organizations are your principal customers for ProjectCenter? (some named examples would be useful)

Within ProjectCenter we have always targeted AEC specifically. In the Spanish market, due to the particular strength of global engineering/infrastructure firms, we placed a special focus on this sector as opposed to the US operations, where our focus was more on architecture and construction companies.

In Spain, particularly, ProjectCenter is widely recognized as the easiest-to-use SaaS project collaboration application and our customers have given evidence of the excellent customer support that Bricsnet offers through the customer satisfaction surveys that we carry on on an annual basis.

ProjectCenter is used in projects of different types and sizes, with total project budgets ranging from a few hundred thousands of euros (residential developments) to 1 billion mega projects (large infrastructure programmes). We have been working closely with companies like Acciona, Bouygues, EDF, Endesa, Ferrovial, Iberdrola, Isolux Group, Ministerio de Fomento (Spanish Ministry of Public Works), Spanish Ministry of the Environment, Técnicas Reunidas, Typsa, URS Corporation, Vodafone, etc.

These are some examples of projects:

i) Infrastructure and transportation sector – in projects such as Madrid Metro, Oran Tramway, highways (Greece, India, Ireland, Romania, etc), New York Ground Zero Transport Hub, Rapid Rail Trinidad & Tobago, etc. One of the biggest Spanish infrastructure project undertaken to date, and where ProjectCenter was successfully used, consisted of 900 km of water capture and transport through an extremely complex national grid of piping, tunnels and canals.

ii) Energy and chemical sector – we collaborate with national utilities companies, with ongoing projects throughout the world: power plants, R&D projects in new environmental technologies and renewable energy facilities in Europe, Africa, South America, and chemical and water treatment plants in several countries in Europe, Africa, South America and Australia.

iii) Airport development projects – terminal buildings, runways and data centres, both at national and international level: Spain, Egypt and South America specifically.

iv) Residential and commercial construction – housing, new corporate headquarters, hotels and shopping malls. Sport facilities planned for the prospective Madrid 2016 Olympic Games award were also managed with ProjectCenter.

  1. What was the initial reaction to SaaS-based solutions in the Spanish market? Has that view changed in recent years? Is ProjectCenter software development undertaken in Spain or the US, or elsewhere?

Going back to early 2000 when Bricsnet initiated its venture on the Spanish market, SaaS-based solutions (ASP back then) were perceived with some degree of skepticism mainly due to:

i) The external data storage component. Questions about data security, availability and confidentiality were raised on a regular basis during commercial presentations. Many prospective customers could simply not conceive that their information would be stored on external servers.

ii) The dot.com burst that had just occurred in 2000 created a negative connotation around Internet-based companies/solutions and lack of confidence about these companies’ future in general.

iii) A market traditionally reluctant in terms of business practice transparency. Particularly in Spain, the AEC sector is a closed sector, fragmented and not at all prone to technological innovation and transparency. In general, it is a difficult market to penetrate and it never reached the penetration levels that we had expected or that other countries like UK, Asia or Middle East realised. Frankly, in this sector, business practice transparency is still a pending discipline. That was true ten years ago and unfortunately, today it still remains true.

ProjectCenter development is fully undertaken in the US while Product Management and QA are more global, ensuring that views from different sectors and different countries and customers are incorporated accordingly in the final product development.

  1. BIW was deployed on a Madrid shopping centre in the early 2000s, and I understand that Aconex is establishing a base in Spain. Who else do you regard as competitors in the collaboration sector, and how significant are they?

In the early years of 2000, there were several actors trying to establish a presence in the Spanish market but within few years most of them vanished altogether.

In all honesty, we know of very few projects of competitors and those opened were in fact influenced by the lead project manager/architect/developer that tried to extend their previous experiences with extranets elsewhere. Bovis Lend Lease, Mace or Chapman Taylor are good examples: they introduced BIW in Xanadu shopping centre or 4Projects in other projects, but there was no further indication that competitors were set to establish a stable base in Spain.

Very recently, Aconex opened an office in Madrid but so far we have not crossed our roads and we are largely unaware of a significant presence penetration by Aconex in Spain. For the time being, it looks like Spain is a market dominated by ProjectCenter.

However, we are keeping a close eye on open-source technologies and the impact of the current trend of low-cost to no- cost solutions.

  1. Has the current global financial crisis had an impact on your ProjectCenter business?

There is no doubt the financial crisis was noticed all over the world, especially in the AEC sector. Spain was not immune and probably presented a priori the worst perspectives because of its heavy dependence on “bricks and mortar” and its incredible property boom followed by a drastic 2008 burst. However, ProjectCenter did not register an important decrease mainly due to the fact that many of our customers use our solution in international longer term infrastructure or industrial projects. Nevertheless, growth stalled and total bookings did decrease.

  1. There has been lots of talk about Building Information Modelling (BIM) in the past couple of years. Is this something that you will be incorporating into ProjectCenter?

BIM has become an interesting subject, especially in the last few years. Similarly to what has happened with the life-cycle asset management, Bricsnet pioneered the dawn of BIM and in the late 1990s had in its portfolio some 3D modeling software that unfortunately never took off seriously and whose commercial sale was discontinued years ago as we realized we were ahead of the time.

BIM is an important part of the design process where the collaboration tools are many times desirable but may be not indispensable and this is maybe why we do not put a special effort in its deployment. From a purely file-sharing standpoint, it is clear that ProjectCenter could accommodate Revit or similar models.

Concerning the future, we have no immediate plans to incorporate it as part of our offering as BIM is not directly related to portfolio and workplace management and consequently to our core business and flagship technology Bricsnet Enterprise.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2010/01/the-bricsnet-interview/

Jan 18 2010

Still coming soon: tender.ly

In October last year, I chanced upon tender.ly, “web-based software, for Architecture, Engineering and Construction companies to conduct their tendering for suppliers and subcontractors”. The service, from Sydney-Australia-based Constrex, was due to be launched in late 2009, but I understand the launch of the web-based service has been delayed. I received a Twitter:

“We aim to launch as server-software for download end-of-Feb; Full SaaS, sometime later…”

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2010/01/still-coming-soon-tenderly/

Jan 14 2010

Asite reaches profitability

It’s taken a while, around nine years in fact, but UK construction collaboration technology vendor Asite has finally reached profitability.

According to unaudited figures in a trading statement released on its website today, the London-based company had gross revenues of £2.079m in 2009 (up 10% from £1.89m in 2008), and partly by driving down operating costs 21%, the company delivered a £0.256m profit in the year to 31 December 2009, compared to a loss of £0.233m the previous year. Asite CEO Tony Ryan said:

“2009 saw the Group hit profitability despite the testing market. We grew revenues again by double-digit figures for the year – bringing it to twelve consecutive quarters of continued and sustainable growth….”

Analysis

The 10% growth is down on the figures achieved in previous years (26% in 2007, 14% in 2008,) – perhaps reflecting the industry downturn in the first few months of the year experienced by Aconex (post) and BIW (post) among others.


 

On previous trends, I had been expecting Asite to achieve break-even in 2008, but the market downturn clearly delayed that milestone. It leaves the former BuildOnline UK business, now absorbed into Sword CTSpace, as the only one of the vendors I monitor yet to have achieved profitability.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2010/01/asite-reaches-profitability/

Jan 13 2010

iConstruction

“… developed from the ground up by former Hong Kong Construction industry professionals for the local industry. With a simple English and Chinese interface, ISO 9000 friendly design, and minimal training and support requirements, iConstruction brings real benefits from the first few months of operation, and straightforward licensing options for companies of all sizes to adopt.”

So claims the simple website of iConstruction (just four pages if you include the terms and conditions and the contact page, and some YouTube tutorial videos). The solution – “Simple, affordable web-based document control for the Hong Kong and Asian construction industry” – is apparently available as either a hosted or an in-house solution, and is available “from as little as HK$1,000 per month” (about £79/month).

So, just as the UK has some low cost construction document-sharing solutions, so – it appears – do other markets.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2010/01/iconstruction/

Jan 11 2010

“BIW on the back foot?”

Nathan Doughty yesterday interrupted a long silence on his Free Collaboration blog to post some details of the latest filings to the UK’s Companies House by [my former employer*] BIW Technologies. In BIW on the back foot?, he references this blog and makes a few statements that I would like to comment upon….

I was surprised to see last week that BIW Technologies released their accounts, albeit late, and that they appear to be in decline.

Only one year’s results are ‘late’, and the 2009 numbers are actually little more than three months old (will Nathan’s Asite follow BIW’s example and issue their 2008 and 2009 results in April, I wonder?).

Looking at the same reports myself (see BIW: Battered in Woking), I think Nathan’s use of the word ‘decline’ is possibly a bit strong. We are really, at this stage, talking about a one-year ‘blip’ in BIW’s fortunes – for me, a downturn sustained over two or more successive years (as Asite’s revenues declined over three years up to 2006, for example) might more accurately be termed a decline.

BIW, like many other businesses before it, has taken the opportunity to aggregate various losses (including some one-off ‘exceptional expenses’) into one year’s accounts (I believe accountants sometimes describe this as ‘kitchen-sinking’). The short-term impact can look bad, but any future bounce-back may look much healthier.

Staff numbers fell to 47 (down from 63 in 2008) and to keep costs low they have set up a development and support team in India.

Of course, I am one of the people who no longer work for BIW, so there is no argument that BIW has reduced its staff numbers. However, BIW’s establishment of a development and support team in India is hardly a new step – it was mentioned when BIW published its 2007 results. And the strategy is hardly novel – Asite outsourced its development to India some years before BIW did.

This is in contrast to the recent healthy news coming from other construction SaaS vendors (Asite continues ascent (my employer), 4Projects and profitability…).

As I have written in several recent posts, 4Projects has certainly been producing some healthy results of late (see Good numbers from 4Projects and 4Projects and profitability), but the positive trend among other construction SaaS vendors is by no means universal. Depending on how you interpret the results:

  • Australia-based vendor Aconex had something of a stand-still year up to but not including June 2009 (post);
  • Business Collaborator‘s growth slowed in 2008, with a warning on further growth in 2009 (post);
  • StoreData’s revenues dropped 10% in 2008 (post); and
  • while Asite started 2008 with some positive numbers (my post which Nathan quotes), I did wonder if it would be sustained over the full year (see later post), let alone into 2009.

Since my post, I have received an email from BIW CEO Colin Smith who writes:

“Strange that Nathan has become a financial commentator! Also strange that he would crow about Asite’s (non) achievements – they’ve NEVER made a profit and have taken 10 years to grow to be 25% of our size…. [comment deleted**]”

Update (13 January 2010): BIW has issued its own news release on its results, stressing the restructured company’s debt-free status and strong balance sheet.

** Update (14 January 2010): After receiving an email from Asite CEO Tony Ryan threatening legal action over repetition of an alleged libel, I deleted a remark made by Colin Smith.

Update (15 January 2010): Another email received from Colin Smith:

Paul,

In light of Asite’s unaudited results announcement (although very curious that they’ve not files 2008 accounts yet – especially in light of Nathan’s accounting zeal) I would like to revise my previous comments: they’ve actually taken 10 years to grow to 34% of our size. as opposed to the 25% stated. Sincere apologies to Asite for the error.

[* Disclosure: I worked for BIW Technologies Ltd from 2000 to May 2009, and have since undertaken occasional paid PR consultancy projects for the company.]

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2010/01/biw-on-the-back-foot/

Jan 11 2010

BIW – Battered in Woking

I see (thanks to a post by Nathan Doughty – to which I will respond in a separate post) that the latest annual reports and accounts have been filed at Companies House by Woking, Surrey-based BIW Technologies Ltd [my former employer*] and its newly-formed parent company, BIW Technologies Group Ltd. Both underline what I have been forecasting for some months: the global financial crisis has had a big impact on some construction collaboration software-as-a-service (SaaS) technology businesses.

On behalf of BIW, I issued a news release in late 2008 saying this UK SaaS company had achieved record turnover of £7.3m and a profit of around £1.1m (see BIW grows 27% to September 2008). While the latter figure is restated in the filed accounts as £0.928m, the plunge in construction activity, particularly in the Middle East, had a drastic impact up to 30 September 2009 on both BIW’s turnover and its profitability. After years of steady growth, the company recorded its first drop in turnover, which dropped 19% to £5.934m.

 

Two years of profitability were replaced by an operating loss of £0.73m (though this includes “one-off exceptional reorganisation costs of £618k relating to redundancies, compromise agreements, office relocation and bad debt write-offs”), resulting in a profitability plunge reminiscent of the reverses suffered by rivals in 2003-04:

 

BIW’s business review says:

“In line with world markets, the Company found trading conditions over the last years challenging. As a direct result of the economic downturn and the subsequent withdrawal of funding, a number of large development projects stalled, or in some cases were cancelled, resulting in a 19% reduction in the company’s revenues….” (p.2)

BIW says its operating losses were mainly sustained during the first six months of the financial year, with continuous monthly profitability returning from April 2009 onwards (excluding a loss in September 2009 arising from expenses relating to its ‘recapitalisation‘; see also A tough year for BIW). It seeks to reassure readers:

“Despite being its first ever fall in revenues, management believes that the business performed comparatively well during this period of unprecedented economic difficulty and that this underlines the strength of the SaaS model.” (p.2)

Middle East

After explaining the circumstances of its corporate restructuring in September and listing some new UK-based clients, BIW’s business review expands upon the impact of the downturn in the Gulf region:

“The Middle-Eastern operation, based in Dubai, suffered more acutely, with significant cancellations of projects and a paucity of new business. Importantly though, the Company agreed terms for all outstanding monies due from its Dubai-based clients, including Nakheel, has now collected those monies and has no outstanding debts in the region. Whilst the outlook for new projects in Dubai is poor, the Company has re-focused its sales & marketing efforts into neighboring [sic] Abu Dhabi (an oil-rich nation, currently investing heavily in infrastructure projects such as roads, educational establishments and hospitals) and is enjoying some early success there with key clients such as Mubadala…..” (p.3)

It would seem that BIW took an even bigger hit from the bursting of the Dubai construction bubble than its Australia-based rival Aconex (see post) – while fellow UK vendor 4Projects‘ decision not to pursue opportunities in the Middle East has been vindicated (post). The impact of project deferrals and cancellations on BIW is clear from the figure given for future revenues yet to be invoiced: down a quarter to £9.4m from last year’s £12.8m.

Recapitalisation

In November, I wrote again about BIW’s financial restructuring (see also BIW undertakes recapitalisation), and BIW’s new financial reports give a little further background, and – as one might expect – they portray its position in a positive light, stressing its absence of debt:

“Now, with a financially sound parent company with a strong balance sheet, monthly profitable trading, year-end cash of almost £1m and a un-used overdraft facility of £425,000 from Coutts & Co, the Company is in an enviable position in relation to its competitors and is able to weather adverse trading conditions and take advantage of an improvement in market conditions as the economy recovers.” (p.2)

(Remember, though, BIW’s debt-free advantage didn’t worry 4Projects’ Steve Nelson when I met him last month – see post.)

Leadership?

BIW’s positive messages are reiterated in a series of bullet points (p.3), to which is added the anticipated benefits of the new relationship with Sage CRE in north America (see post). However, does the opening claim – that BIW Technologies Ltd “remains the UK market leader” – still stand?

First, as the first graph above suggests, the gap on turnover between BIW and 4Projects is now much closer, and it is conceivable that 4Projects’ turnover in its financial year to 30 March 2010 could see it overtake BIW. The battle does, though, seem to be between these two companies as there is a big gap back to other UK-based vendors – and some of these have yet to report results for the same troubled period covered in BIW’s 2009 report.

Second, if leadership is based on profits (see second graph, plus post), 4Projects has been consistently profitable throughout its existence whereas BIW took some years to reach profitability. This year’s dip may be exaggerated by the exceptional expenses, but it remains to be seen how quickly BIW will be able to return to the c. £1m profit achieved in 2008 – let alone achieve the kind of figure achieved by 4Projects in its most recent accounts. And, again, other UK vendors have yet to reveal what profits or losses they posted this year (potentially, other vendors could have dips like BIW’s for 2009).

Third, much depends, of course, on how one measures market leadership. If only we had some reliable statistics about projects and unique currently active users, for instance, they might give a different picture to that conveyed solely by the financial performances. Others may look more closely at the technologies being developed and deployed; being ‘cutting edge’ might, for example, justify a claim to being the UK market leader even if financials or size of user base lags behind others.

Update (12 January 2010): Fourth, I suppose leadership might conceivably also be claimed on the basis that a company has the most employees, though it’s how efficiently those employees are deployed that really matters.

[* Disclosure: I worked for BIW Technologies Ltd from 2000 to May 2009, and have since undertaken occasional paid PR consultancy projects for the company.]

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2010/01/biw-battered-in-woking/

Jan 07 2010

Project Bluestreak and the ‘collaboration kernel’

I wrote about Autodesk’s experimental BIM collaboration environment, Project Bluestreak, last November, being interested in both its promise of accelerated building information modelling (BIM) and its deployment of Web 2.0 tools to help speed up the application’s development. On his StressFree blog, David Harrison has written a long and detailed paper, Bluestreak and the birth of a collaboration kernel, about how Project Bluestreak has the potential to become the ‘glue’ that will enable a host of currently poorly integrated technologies to talk to each other. This could revolutionise collaboration in the architecture, engineering and construction sector – assuming Autodesk is brave enough to attempt such a mission.

Collaboration kernel

David makes the key observation that, given the diverse range of different interactions that need to be managed, “no single technology is capable of satisfying the digital collaboration needs of a project team“. Even using two or more different tools (he evaluates telephone, email, document management systems, traditional CAD, BIM, and micro-blogging) can lead to lack of process integration, create issues relating to identity management, resulting in repetition of functions and data. What is needed, he says, is to establish a cohesive, Internet-centric ‘collaboration kernel’:

“The most efficient and reliable means of solving this problem is to establish a collaboration kernel that can act as an intermediary between the disparate tools. This Internet-centric service would in effect become the project’s digital post office, overseeing the exchange of messages that support, summarise and promote the collaboration interactions taking place within the project team. A collaboration kernel’s presence would be subtle, but its influence on collaboration would be significant.”

He goes on to examine how promising a candidate Project Bluestreak might be for such a kernel, but reckons it needs to be repositioned and substantially developed further as a social messaging service with APIs to existing Autodesk functions and to third party applications.

Analysing its potential vis-a-vis the Project Information Cloud, David identifies various functional improvements that it needs in order to operate as a collaboration kernel. I won’t detail the points he makes (though it does address some of Piotr Zudek‘s suggestions); instead I encourage you to read his article. It is fascinating, and should be read in detail by Autodesk and by the many other software developers looking at how they might achieve better integration between their various platforms. Forget short-term projects to build data exchange standards between collaboration platforms (the UK’s NCCTP tried that and has made little progress – post) – the picture is much bigger than that, and requires a broader, multi-partner approach.

Update (08 January 2010): Incite CEO Sean Kaye makes his own observations on David’s paper in a post Who owns the cloud?.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2010/01/project-bluestreak-and-the-collaboration-kernel/

Jan 07 2010

Show us the numbers, Cadac

I have railed before (Give us the figures, Cadweb!) about construction collaboration technology vendors trumpeting how much their business has grown without actually giving us any figures to substantiate their hype. Latest offender is Netherlands-based Cadac who developed Organice, a document management solution based on Microsoft’s SharePoint system (see post). A Cadac Organice BV news release talks vaguely about “strong growth” then says: “The number of customers was almost doubled and the number of sold licenses was more than quadrupled”. But unless you know the starting points for these figures, and – more importantly – what these translate into in terms of revenues and profitability – they are almost meaningless (no journalist I know would use such a vague release as the basis for a story).

The release has a bracket saying “preliminary results”, so perhaps Cadac will be a little more explicit when the final results of Cadac Group Holding over 2009 are presented (c. May 2010) during its annual stakeholders meeting. A report on its 2008 results showed total revenues of €26m, and an EBITDA of €2m, but there is no breakdown of the results by product group, so we are none the wiser about how well the Cadac Organice BV business was doing.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2010/01/show-us-the-numbers-cadac/

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