Oct 24 2006

IE7/DWF viewer bug fix imminent

Apparently, the Autodesk DWF bug relating to Internet Explorer 7 (see 20 October post) is about to be fixed. A CNetnews.com report says Autodesk is to release a patch for Autodesk Design Review 2007 and Autodesk DWF Viewer 7.0 later this week – ahead of a service pack release planned for 7 November.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2006/10/ie7dwf_viewer_b/

Oct 24 2006

BIM – Asite targets US

Earlier this month, UK-based collaboration vendor Asite announced that it planned to release a collaborative BIM product (see 10 October post).

It has just issued a further press release saying it will be announcing (again) the “forthcoming release of Asite Collaborative BIM at the Building SMART Week Conference” in Washington DC next week.

BuildingSMART is the recent preferred branding for the International Alliance for Interoperability, and BuildingSMART week is a series of meetings, with a conference sandwiched in the middle, hosted by the IAI’s North American chapter. According to Asite’s release, Asite Collaborative BIM is built on the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) schema developed by the IAI.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2006/10/bim_asite_targe/

Oct 24 2006

BIM – some background reading

Are all your construction contacts clamouring to switch to BIM (building information modelling)? No. Neither are mine. However, there is certainly growing interest in what BIM might have to offer, and over the last few days I have found myself reading more about it. For example:

  • On AEC Cadalyst, I read a great article by US-based CAD manager Scott MacKenzie, BIM there, done that. Scott describes well the challenges posed in moving to BIM – it clearly is much more than just 3D CAD
  • Also from the US, The AGC’s BIM Initiatives and the Contractor’s Guide to BIM came courtesy of AECbytes, Lachmi Khemlani’s invaluable newsletter. It is clear from the article that we are still some way from widespread adoption of BIM within the AEC industry: “With regard to how much time it would take for BIM to become commonplace, a quick poll around the room suggested that in 5 to 7 years, most projects would be done using BIM”.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2006/10/bim_some_backgr-2/

Oct 20 2006

TeamDWF.com highlights IE7/viewer incompatability

TeamDWF‘s headline story, Internet Explorer 7 Will Break DWF & DWG Viewers, highlights a potential problem whereby users of the new Microsoft browser (see BBC story) could find that it breaks Autodesk DWF Viewer, Autodesk Design Review, and Autodesk DWG TrueView. The problem arises because these applications use HTML as part of their menu interfaces, with operational support from code in Internet Explorer (the issue was identified earlier this week by Autodesk blogger Scott Sheppard). Uninstalling Internet Explorer 7 and reverting to Internet Explorer 6 does not restore the functionality either.

Among users of construction collaboration technologies (aka ‘project extranets’), this news may cause some unease. Most systems employ viewer applications, often from third-parties such as Cimmetry, and if these viewers function in the same way as the Autodesk products, then users may find themselves unable to view drawings if their browser has been upgraded to IE7 (it will be an automatic update to Windows XP in November).

TeamDWF.com is a new online publication devoted to the use of Autodesk’s DWF publishing technology for collaboration. Autodesk, not surprisingly, is the site’s founding sponsor (though others are apparently welcome); AECnews is the owner/publisher.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2006/10/teamdwfcom_high/

Oct 19 2006

e-PIN overhauls website (2)

Got an email today from Robin Shipston, a director of ePIN – a BIW competitor and one of the smaller UK vendors of construction collaboration technology.

He gently criticises me for not including ePIN’s website on my links list. This was because the list was originally focused on members of the NCCTP – however, as I later added US-based Constructware (and as BuildOnline have since dropped out of the NCCTP), this justification no longer holds – ePIN has been added.

Since my previous post about their website, Robin says "it is being re-vamped as we speak". I will be interested to see if he took my comments on board.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2006/10/epin_overhauls_-2/

Oct 18 2006

Factors in buying software

In “Why Do You Buy CAD Software? Survey Result (preliminary)“, Roopinder Tara of the CAD Insider blog (and the useful TenLinksDaily newsletter) gives an early indication of the key factors used in assessing CAD software for purchase – based on an online survey (still ongoing at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=891102592287).

After over 120 responses, the key factors (listed in order of importance) are:

  1. robustness of software (most important) 8.1
  2. read legacy data 7.4
  3. initial cost and maintenance 5.7
  4. reputation of company  5.6
  5. write legacy data 5.6
  6. availability of trained personnel  5.5
  7. popularity  5.1
  8. evaluation during a trial period 5.0
  9. scores in benchmarks 4.8
  10. published reviews  3.7
  11. case histories 3.4
  12. shoot outs  2.8
  13. advertising (least important) 1.0

The numbers after each entry represent a weighted score showing relative importance and is normalized to the lowest score (ie: robustness was 8.1 times more important than advertising).

The above list ranks traditional marketing promotion activity (eg: advertising, case studies, shoot-out events, etc) towards the bottom of the list, but the appearance of company reputation at No.4 does suggest there is a strong role for the public relations professional in creating the right vendor credentials in the purchaser’s mind.

It would be interesting, I think, to do something similar for construction collaboration technologies (aka ‘project extranets’), though the list of factors might need to be expanded slightly perhaps to cover additional issues. For example, there might need to be questions relating to hosting (where solutions are not managed in-house).

tags: CAD, extranet, AEC, collaboration, marketing, public relations

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2006/10/factors_in_buyi/

Oct 13 2006

SaaS penetration to reach 25% by 2011

ASPnews.com reports the latest projections for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) growth from Gartner, who say SaaS will constitute 25 percent of new business software delivered by 2011, compared to just five percent in 2005.

The trend is upward, says Gartner, because:

  • SaaS is beginning to solve business complexity problems.
  • SaaS is more affordable from operating budgets whereas traditional software license plans usually require a capital budget.
  • SaaS applications deliver what people want – “People have stepped back and said ‘What is the bread-and-butter stuff I really need to get done?'” Robert DeSisto said. “The SaaS vendors have designed their software to that design point and not over-engineered it.”

This latter point has also been picked up by Phil Wainewright, who attended a SaaS vendor’s UK user conference. In his post ‘Incremental adoption sells SaaS to the enterprise‘, he reports: “Enterprise buyers go shopping for business functionality, not technology attributes”.

Another selling point (expanding on the second Gartner point above) also emerged:

“Enterprises like the fact that on-demand scales more evenly than conventional on-premises software. This means they can make a rapid start on a small scale and then roll the application out more widely on a timescale of their own choosing (or to different sets of users irrespective of how large or small each group is). In some cases this was coupled to an economic motivation, such as not having to take on additional in-house IT staff, or having less budget available this year than next, but more often it was dictated by the needs of the organization.

… An incremental approach avoids putting stress on overburdened resources and allows the application to quietly prove its worth before rolling it out to every user.”

tags: SaaS, Gartner, ASP

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2006/10/saas_penetratio/

Oct 12 2006

CJ Construction Industry Awards 2006

I have just skimmed through a supplement to this week’s UK trade magazine Contract Journal covering its annual awards event. Working in IT, I turned first to the IT Award page. This year’s winner was the BAA T5 project at London Heathrow Airport, rewarded for its 3D single model environment. Shortlisted in the same category were contractor Taylor Woodrow, for its decision to trial the Avanti approach to collaborative working, and Dean & Dyball Construction, for building a low-budget document-sharing facility using Microsoft SharePoint.

I also noticed that Sir Robert McAlpine got shortlisted in the Major Contractor category, partly for improving communication through "the use of web-based project extranets to improve collaboration between geographically dispersed design-team members".

The recent NCCTP research found that many industry organisations are increasingly adopting collaboration technologies as normal business practice. These examples suggest that extranets not only help businesses win work, they can also help them win competitions and awards.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2006/10/cj_construction/

Oct 12 2006

ProjectWise StartPoint targets AutoCAD users

I have written before about Bentley Projectwise Startpoint. My latest communication from Bentley says the Microsoft SharePoint-based system, first developed to work with MicroStation V8 XM Edition, now supports AutoCAD 2002, 2004, 2005 and 2006. Users can now also download a free 30-day trial of ProjectWise StartPoint for AutoCAD.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2006/10/projectwise_sta/

Oct 10 2006

Asite’s “major new developments”

Asite’s website has revealed the “major new development” announced at last week’s half-day conference (see previous post). It was two ‘new’ products: Asite Workspace and Asite Building Information Model (BIM).

Asite Workspace is described in Asite’s press release as:

“an entry level collaboration tool, addressing the concerns of the industry highlighted by the 2006 NCCTP research… removing the barriers to collaboration by providing a cost effective entry point. Project teams and supply chain can now start to collaborate right at the start of a project, when the advanced features of sister product Asite Project Workflow are not yet required. Smaller projects can also have access to affordable collaborative technology.”

Don’t all rush at once…. Workspace apparently isn’t available until December 2006.

Asite had a previous product called Workspace (“document management systems”), similarly positioned below Project Workflow, two years ago – see p.3 of 2004 Annual Report – is this perhaps an upgrade or a replacement? Certainly, the name’s not new within Asite, and nor is it new within the British AEC software market: Union Square has a product of the same name (and the name has also been used by Groove and IBM, among other software vendors). Will Union Square take kindly to Asite (re)launching a competing product with the same name?

Asite BIM is:

“More than just a 3D model which only stores graphical information, BIM incorporates “Smart Objects”; For example an air conditioning unit within a BIM would also contain data about its supplier, lead in times, operation and maintenance procedures, flow rates and clearance requirements.”

I was struck by the similarity of this description and that of “i-components” (‘intelligent components’) developed by BIW over half a decade ago (see January 2001 press cutting). Again, the Asite product doesn’t seem to be available yet – the release is said by Asite to be “forthcoming”.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2006/10/asites_major_ne/

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