bim+ launches free BIM starter edition for teams

bimplus logoNemetschek’s bim+ cloud-based open building information modelling, BIM, service, launched in Beta in November 2013, now has a no-cost starter edition for small teams. The Munich, Germany-based company says a professional edition will be available soon.

The free Team Edition (5 projects, 5 users, 5 GB storage) connects architects, engineers, building managers and owners as well as their business partners and helps to avoid costly errors. The collaborative platform supports different software solutions (including SketchUp and Autodesk Revit), enabling visualisation of the latest building information in a web browser or on an iPad (bim+ Explorer is available from the App Store, along with bim+ Connect; sister apps bim+ Annotate and bim+ Viewer for iPhone are “forthcoming”). According to Christian Ehl, CEO of Nemetschek bim+ GmbH:

“BIM is an essential prerequisite for efficiency in the building industry and will be decisive for winning projects in the near future. With the free Team Edition we enable small architecture and engineering firms to be a part of this promising future.”

The bim+ extends beyond visualisation to share queries and comments.

BIMplus visualisation“On-site observations or any kind of information can easily be added exactly where they belong. … Including remarks, photos, priorities and due dates helps teams to discover and solve problems. Every project member is kept up to date and costly errors can be avoided. All this happens in real time and wherever people are at the moment. On-site problems can be recorded via mobile devices and monitored and solved by the team.”

This sharing includes distribution outside bim+, via email and social sharing too, another indication of how ‘social collaboration‘ is infiltrating the AEC sector (see previous post).

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2014/02/bim-launches-free-bim-starter-edition-for-teams/

Comindware Project

Generic in-house project management platform Comindware Project is more real-time and enables ‘social collaboration’. It’s becoming a trend….

Comindware logoKeeping an eye on interesting developments in generic SaaS collaboration platforms, I see that Comindware, who I wrote about in July 2012, recently launched Comindware Project, a product designed to “simplify project management, improve real-time visibility into projects and enable social collaboration to create a productive and predictive work environment.” Key product features include:

  • Predictive Real-time Gantt Chart: Allowing project managers to see the real-time project status as project plans are automatically recalculated as tasks get completed or are delayed.
  • Automated Priority-based Planning: Enabling automatic scheduling of tasks based on priorities and resources, saving time typically spent on manual scheduling.
  • Social Collaboration: Bringing the industry’s first social collaboration into project management with project-based activity streams, “rooms” to discuss matters across or beyond projects and company organizational charts that include employee skill sets and resource allocation.
  • Visual UI Across All Devices: Allowing users to continuously collaborate on projects, track project process and consistently search for the right people when it’s needed across laptops, computers, iPhone and Android.
  • Available in Microsoft Outlook: Benefiting more than 300 million Microsoft Outlook users who can now use project management software within their familiar Outlook environment.

Three things stand out for me.

First, the ‘social collaboration‘ angle. Project collaboration has usually focused on supporting interactions about objects (typically, files such as drawings, documents, etc, but also sometimes about workflow-generated notices). Such ‘collaboration’ has also been mainly closed and asynchronous. Most construction project delivery platforms haven’t yet enabled social forms of collaboration where discussions can be more open and about wider topics, and which can involve more collaborators (regular readers may recall me talking in October 2013 about US startup FieldLens trying to make construction collaboration more social, echoing earlier developments I’d seen, and UK AEC SaaS vendor Asite has a CEO who’s talked about ‘cocial networking‘ approaches). I’m expecting more ‘social collaboration’ in enterprise tools, and once these become accepted in generic business platforms, then construction will surely follow suit.

Second, Comindware embraces “the any information, anytime, anywhere, on any device” real-time mobile approach. Workers are increasingly mobile, and vendors increasingly need to ensure their applications and associated data can be accessed on any device (oddly, no mention of Windows 8, despite the Outlook support?).

Third, in its marketing Comindware, offered both as a cloud service and on-premise, remains focused on project management and business process management within organisations, with solutions focused on IT projects, HR, finance and marketing. If it wants to reach beyond the enterprise and into particular industries, it therefore seemingly faces similar challenges to common in-house platforms such as Microsoft Sharepoint, around which businesses (eg: Cadac) have developed industry-specific implementations of the core platform to suit the file-sharing and workflow collaboration needs of particular verticals, such as construction (post).

 

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2014/02/comindware-project/

A Viewpoint view point one year after 4Projects acquisition

Viewpoint’s future growth will be built on 21st century technologies and flexibility to meet different customer needs, including collaboration, says its CEO.

viewpointcs-logoAlmost exactly a year ago, as mentioned on Friday, Portland, Oregon based Viewpoint Construction Software acquired SaaS construction collaboration specialist 4Projects and set about profiting from its investment in the UK company, now based in Newcastle. I had a conference call yesterday with Viewpoint CEO Jay Haladay and Matthew Harris, senior VP of strategy and corporate business development, to review the past year and also put last week’s Maxwell Software deal into context.

Jay HaladayViewpoint has been on a (so far) ten-year mission to to build a portfolio of contemporary software, said Jay Haladay (speaking from Hawaii where he is attending the Associated Builders and Contractors annual convention, BizCon, sponsored by Maxwell Software). 4Projects fits into that vision, he said. combining forward-looking collaboration and BIM capabilities, that can be supplied alongside 21st century estimating, accounting and ERP packages.

Matt summarised the past year for 4Projects:

“We set about improving its international reach and its marketing, and using its creative technical talent to develop a more advanced view of the 4Projects product and its development cycle. We now have a very solid product management function under Miles Haladay, and a carefully deliberated product road covering the next 2-3 years, which has been explained to the customer base.

The Viewpoint customer base has, of course, grown significantly as a result of the Maxwell acquisition, which Jay sees as a major step forward for the group. (Incidentally, the US AEC IT sector saw another rationalisation last week: Explorer Software Group – also owner of the UK-based RedSkyIT [January 2007 post], and two firms in Australia [June 2011] – acquired ERP vendor Computer Guidance; news release here).

Extending ERP reach

Previously, Viewpoint’s core target customers were the 8-10,000 US contractors with revenues over $25m; now it has a product offering, developed on a similar SQL software architecture to its V6 platform, that reaches to a potential half a million contractor customers with lower revenues. And like the 4Projects strand, he says its ERP solutions are based on contemporary business models and technical platforms (he talked about a future embracing mobile real-time business intelligence), while rival systems are in danger of becoming antiquated and marginalised.

The rationale for the 4Projects acquisition remains strong, Jay said. Rebranded in the US as Viewpoint for Project Collaboration, the collaboration platform is now being rolled out in north America, using the extensive footprint Viewpoint already has among contractors. Similarly, the Viewpoint name is now more familiar in the UK and Middle East and other markets where 4Projects has historically been well-known, giving it potential, for example, to reach UK customers who may be interested in its ERP solutions.

This may well be a cause for concern for businesses such as the Explorer group and COINS which have historically had a strong footprint in the UK contractor ERP sector.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2014/02/a-viewpoint-view-point-one-year-after-4projects-acquisition/

Another Viewpoint US acquisition

viewpointcs-logoI have been tracking evemaxwell systemsnts at  US ERP vendor Viewpoint Construction Software since its first public expressions of interest in the SaaS construction collaboration sector in February 2012, through its purchase of enterprise content management software provider Construction Imaging in May 2012 (post) to its acquisition of UK SaaS provider 4Projects a year later. The latest move by the Portland, Oregon-based company has been the acquisition of another US business, Pennsylvania-based Maxwell Systems, who provide takeoff and estimating, project management and accounting solutions.

According to Viewpoint’s news release, the acquisition allows Viewpoint “to extend and increase their ability to provide contemporary and mission-critical software solutions, including estimating, to a broader construction market audience.” The deal will add 200 Maxwell people, bringing the Viewpoint employee total to almost 700 people. There will be no gradual re-brand: Maxwell’s website simply announces “it is now Viewpoint Construction Software”.

Viewpoint CEO Jay Haladay says the deal will converge similar software architectures and extend the company’s reach to contractors needing a simpler approach to ERP-type requirements: “Maxwell’s ProContractor product fits quite well. ProContractor is built using the same Microsoft components used in Viewpoint’s V6 Accounting and Project Management software, but is fine-tuned for simplicity and ease of use.” In short, it will extend Viewpoint’s reach to many smaller US contractor businesses outside the ENR top 400 (ie: those turning over under $100m pa).

Viewpoint solutions now address the construction life cycle from estimating and pre-construction through project delivery and collaboration to service maintenance.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2014/02/another-viewpoint-us-acquisition/

Conject capitalising upon its European strengths

2014 promises to be a busy year for Conject. It has acquired a mobile business, and has SaaS BIM and FM tools in the pipeline.

ConjectConject CFO Cesar Flores no longer describes the SaaS company as a German or UK business: “We are a European technology business, focused on the plan, build operate sector,” he says. In a timely move in December 2010 the Munich-headquartered company acquired and later merged BIW Technologies (now Conject Ltd) into its organisation, and, with most European construction and real estate markets emerging from recession, it is seeing growing interest in its suite of collaborative products.

Product roadmap

Flores views the company as the European leader in the SaaS construction collaboration or infrastructure lifecycle management (ILM) sector, delivering a premium product to customers wanting to make a step change in productivity. Reflecting on its recent acquisition of Wapp6 and impending launches of BIM and FM toolsets, he also says it is now well placed to capitalise upon the differing speeds of technology adoption across its core markets, and to cross-sell solutions proven in testing markets.

While BIM discussion is well advanced in the UK, in Scandinavia and in some Middle Eastern states with strong UK presence, he says BIM has less uptake in some of Conject’s other core markets, including France and Germany. “The focus of discussions is also variable,” he says. “In the UK, the initial focus was on BIM authoring and 3D visualization. Now we see a rapid shift to COBie and collaborative workflows, while consultations in other markets suggest it’s more about using BIM to manage time and costs – and project cost control and workflow have long been particular Conject strengths.” Conject’s BIM Design Review (post) is currently being showcased among existing customers. He believes that reacting to these differing perspectives will help the company deliver well-rounded solutions that reach across multiple national markets.

He uses the example of facilities management to illustrate the approach:

Cesar FloresGermany has a sophisticated FM market with many players offering CAFM solutions. Our SaaS FM solution is therefore very well specified, and we have now developed it for a multi-language platform. We have a partner that will lead a push into the FM market in Italy, and we will be launching our English language version in March, capitalising on the UK-based customers we already know from selling Project Control [Conject’s SaaS construction collaboration system].”

Wapp6 - logoReturning to the Wapp6 mobile technology acquisition, Flores says the defects management application clearly shows the benefits of four years’ experience in the French market, meaning users of the English version could immediately benefit from the solution’s maturity (Conject has, again, already started marketing the solution, OPR6, to existing customers of its collaboration system). Functionality will be extended to cover other processes that currently remain largely paper-based or offline, with Conject delivering supporting apps across iOS, Android and Windows 8 operating systems.

International operations

“The UK market is recovering, Dubai is increasingly strong, we are winning some landmark projects in Singapore, and we have a strong presence in Russia, where we are one of the few firms with extensive experience of delivering technology for the construction space there.”

Ralf HändlFlores believes new Conject CEO Ralf Haendl will deliver strong international leadership, drawing on years of experience on the boards of firms such as Bilfinger & Berger and Drees & Sommer, including time spent in Dubai, south-east Asia and north America. “Ralf has great understanding of global construction markets, and firmly believes the product richness of our ILM offering has international appeal.”

Construction and real estate are certainly attractive sectors, dwarfing all others in just about every economy, says Flores, but construction remains a comparitively low spender on IT. Flores believes this cost-conscious customer approach benefits SaaS vendors, and, aside from established players like Aconex and 4Projects/Viewpoint, thinks global operators such as Trimble and Oracle are taking increasing interest in construction SaaS (we also briefly discussed a ‘disruptive’ Google entry into the market). “It was a great market to be in when we launched in 2000, and interest from both investors and from customers is now as high, if not higher than it was then,” he says.

[Disclosure: An employee of BIW Technologies from 2000 to 2009, I have  since undertaken various consultancy projects for Conject.]

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2014/02/conject-capitalising-upon-its-european-strengths/

Australian standard for document control

Judging from the number of comments on posts about construction document controller training, there is a thirst for information on this subject. Latest news from Perth, Australia-based training business neXadyne (post) is that it submitted a late 2013 proposal to Standards Australia for the development of a national Standard for Document Control.

This proposal has since been approved and work on the developing a new Australian standard will start shortly, with a committee that includes neXadyne and representatives from employers, government organisations, professional and technical associations, and research and academic organisations (what about collaboration technology vendors?). neXadyne’s Deborah Wilson says:

The standard will help to –

  • promote common Document Control practices across organisational boundaries
  • enhance Business-to-Business Document Control communications
  • enable appropriate placement personnel based on level of qualification

We see the development of the Document Control standard as a milestone event for Document Control, which underscores neXadyne’s committment to adding value to the industry.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2014/02/australian-standard-for-document-control/

A Newforma update

Newforma-logoHaving written about Newforma’s burgeoning operation in Australia in December, I talked with Ian Howell, CEO of Newforma, last week. The business, which provides both on-premise and cloud-based AEC information management services, is experiencing growth in Australasia, and continuing to invest in its mobile capabilities, he said.

Newforma in Australia

On the Australasia subject, Ian said Newforma was looking forward to a continued relationship with its former reseller, SmartSoftware, which would continue to provide support and training services to both existing and new enterprise customers. The newly incorporated company Newforma Australia is recruiting business development people to grow its regional footprint – to date, industry veteran (ex Autodesk and Bentley) Frank Sgammotta has been appointed country manager, while Omar Awny is targeting new ANZ business – and it will retain SmartSoftware for consultancy services. Ian also saw the Australian business as a springboard to support firms working on projects in neighbouring regions in south east Asia.

In Australia, Ian highlighted the company’s strong relationships in Australia, mentioning Hassell Architects, engineer Wood & Grieve, and Rice Daubney Architects as customers. The latter is using Newforma on the Sunshine Coast University Hospital PPP project in Queensland, as is Brisbane-based co-designer Architectus, and their joint use of the Newforma-to-Newforma connection had enabled collaboration and avoided expensive co-location strategies, he said. Other customers in the region include CGR AMW, dwp|suters, and Jasmax.

Hybrid offering, mobile and BIM

Reiterating points made when we met in October 2012, Ian is adamant that the AEC market will remain receptive to a hybrid set of requirements, where users want ready access to on-premise information – for internal design review, for example – while also needing the capability to distribute information to their external collaborators. In August 2012, Newforma acquired  US-based Attolist, provider of the SaaS-based AEC-Sync platform, which they re-branded Newforma Project Cloud and – last September – made exclusively available via Amazon Web Services. This has also been increasingly tightly integrated with the core Newforma Project Center product, and a Newforma ID single login simplifies users’ access to all authorised Newforma spaces.

Work is also increasingly mobile; Newforma launched four mobile products in 2013, supporting Apple, Android and – interestingly – the intent to support Windows 8 users, having detected growing corporate IT enthusiasm for Ultrabook and Surface Pro devices. In late March or early April 2014, Newforma plans to launch new additions to its mobile suite.

With building information modelling (BIM) also growing in importance, Ian also stressed the version control capabilities created through integration of the Newforma platform with M-Six’s VEO BIM viewing tool. He ridiculed the  proliferation of simple model viewers, insisting that it was more important to be able to relate non-geometric aspects of design development: “For example, you should be able to view ‘flags’ in the model that relate to RFIs [requests for information] and then have the whole email trail behind the RFI at your fingertips.” He also reminded me about VEO’s roll-back capability, giving a 4D view (time-related) of a shared model that allows users to ascertain the status of an issue at any point in time rather than capturing 1000s of model snapshots throughout the project.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2014/02/a-newforma-update/

Asite gearing up to launch Adoddle 17

Double digit revenue growth and a ‘game-changing’ software release on 17 March are making SaaS vendor Asite excited about the future.

Asite logo 2012London, UK-based construction collaboration and e-procurement technology developer Asite is gearing up for a major launch of its new release, Adoddle 17, on 17 March 2014 (St Patrick’s Day; Asite CEO Tony Ryan is Irish so no coincidence there!). On Monday, I caught up with chief operating officer Nathan Doughty to find out more.

Background

Asite struggled in its early years, having been founded to create a construction e-marketplace just as e-marketplaces fell out of favour. It then identified (correctly) that Software-as-a-Service collaboration technology was a more sustainable product line, and initially resold third-party solutions before creating and launching its own platform in 2004. In parallel, Asite continued managing some aspects of e-procurement, developing a supplier network and contributing to a construction transaction hub, and over the years these have contributed steadily increasing revenues for the company. Asite finally becoming profitable in 2009, and in its last full financial year achieve revenues of just over £4m and a pre-tax profit of £0.511m (October 2013 post).

However, its core business remains its project collaboration toolsets, which have expanded beyond document collaboration to encompass what it has branded cBIM – collaborative Building Information Modelling (first shown as long ago as October 2006!) – and cMOB – collaborative mobile applications (August 2010) – and which was rebranded Adoddle in mid-2012.

Adoddle 17: “game-changer”

Nathan DoughtyNathan describes the Adoddle “collaborative enterprise system” as a “three-legged stool”. Pre-contract sourcing (including bidding, tendering, PQQ tools), procurement (transactions, supplier management, etc) and document collaboration/project management make up the ‘legs’ with the cBIM design management functionality forming the seat and linking it all together.

He says Adoddle 17 will be a “game-changer for Asite”, delivering greater integration between the “maturing” Asite offerings. It will provide:

  • more mobile support – the web-native, connectivity-dependent cMOB apps will be augmented by Apple iOS and Windows 8 apps, with Android versions to come (Asite’s AppBuilder toolset remains popular as a toolkit for customers to build their own apps, while some customers commission Asite’s professional services to configure an app eco-system for them)
  • more “whole life” management – Adoddle FM includes planned preventative maintenance, asset registers and other CAFM tools. Nathan also referred to “Infrastructure Lifecycle Management” (ILM) – a sign that Asite will be competing head-to-head with rival Conject in the design-build-operate sector.
  • a better user interface – An improved user experience, with more configurable access to the full menu of Asite services (Asite will meet the needs of different users from project-level users up to strategic enterprise users needing dashboard views for financial management, procurement, etc), augmented by HTML5-supported ‘in-memory computing’ and better offline capabilities.

Asite growing

Just into the second half of Asite’s financial year, Nathan said the business was delivering steady double-digit revenue growth. He singled out Australia as a growing market; Asite have had a full-time territory manager in Sydney for two years, he says, and they have won several major civil engineering (railway projects, particularly) and mining projects. The UK was “buoyant”, and Asite had diversified its client portfolio – Nathan highlighted the company’s work with the Environment Agency, Transport for London and Crossrail. Marketing in the US was more difficult (we talked about the pressures on direct sales teams – Asite appointed a US VP of Sales last July – and about partner programmes), but he insisted a recent deal with Goldman Sachs had really put them on the map, particularly as the engagement included projects across Goldman Sachs’s global property portfolio and included a significant FM requirement.

Update (6 February 2014) – Interesting article on the development of Asite’s managed hosting with Dimension Data: Asite Revolutionises Corporate Collaboration and Gears for Further Growth with Cloud Platform. Some extracts:

  • Today, Asite operates three data centres (UK, US and Australia) on the Dimension Data platform, serving over 100,000 end users for 4,500 clients.
  • Asite CEO Tony Ryan on the cBIM hosting platform (emphasis added):

Tony Ryan (Asite CEO)We’ve seen significant improvements in data transfer speed thanks to the WAN optimisation built into the Dimension Data cloud platform – today data speed is nearly 10 times faster than before. High speed data transfer enables us to deliver real-time collaborative working for our demanding global customer base and collaborative Building Information Modelling (cBIM) on our fully hosted model server. Our competitors in that particular space are just moving flat files while we’re setting the state of the art for big data technology in the architecture, engineering and construction industry by enabling collaboration in the cloud for models comprised of hundreds of millions of unique data points.

  • Asite has grown its revenues from USD 2.4 million in 2006 to USD 7 million today…. The organisation has plans to more than double its revenues to around USD 15 million, over the next three years.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2014/01/asite-gearing-up-to-launch-adoddle-17/

4Projects opens Newcastle HQ

4projects - a viewpointcs companyIn March last year, I visited the head office of SaaS construction collaboration specialist 4Projects in a Sunderland business park, and heard that, following the company’s February 2013 acquisition by US-based ERP vendor Viewpoint, it was also moving forward with a plan to move to new offices in central Newcastle-upon-Tyne, some 13 miles further north in north-east England. That move has finally taken place. The 4Projects European headquarters is now in the Central Square building on Forth Street, just south of Newcastle station, on the north bank of the River Tyne.

Owly Images
As I’ve covered several times over the past 10 months (most recently, 10 January), 4Projects has been busy recruiting new UK-based staff and the company says the move supports expansion plans of more than 50 percent in 2014. The move to a more customer-friendly location was also part-funded by a £235,000 grant from Let’s Grow, a regional growth fund, supplementing a £3 million investment by 4Projects, helping the company create up to 30 new jobs in the city.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2014/01/4projects-opens-newcastle-hq/

Conject acquires AEC mobile specialist, Wapp6

SaaS construction collaboration provider Conject acquires Paris-based mobile AEC app developer, Wapp6.

Wapp6 - logoConjectThe Anglo-German SaaS construction collaboration technology provider Conject has acquired a French mobile software specialist Wapp6, based in Paris, allowing it to extend its capabilities to include dedicated inspection and defects management via iPad, Android and Windows mobile platforms. No value for the deal has been announced.

According to Conject:

With core competencies in developing mobile applications combined with intimate knowledge of the real estate and construction sectors, Wapp6 is the market leader in inspection and defects management solutions in France, with 30,000 active users and rapid growth over the past five years. The merger creates opportunities for both companies: Wapp6 can now offer Conject products in France, and Conject can offer Wapp6 products around the world.

Ralf Haendl, the recently appointed Conject CEO (announcing a deal begun by his predecessor Colin Smith), commented:

Conject is a globally renowned enterprise with 11 offices worldwide. The acquisition of Wapp6 continues our expansion, brings us into the French market and adds innovative, high-end software solutions for inspection and defects management to further enhance our mobile and cloud-based portfolio.”

Franck Meudec, CEO of Wapp6, commented:

Conject is a market leader in software for the construction and real estate industries, and the unique expertise of their consultancy and service team convinced us that they are the right partner for us. The bonus is that Conject provides a global route-to-market for our applications. We have tested an English version of our defects management application with numerous Conject customers and are excited by the enthusiastic reactions received. The first UK customer will go live in the next week, and we will be offering our products in additional languages later in the year.”

Conject’s existing cloud-based software portfolio includes project control, cost management, document control and facilities management. By acquiring Wapp6, its first major deal since it bought UK-based BIW Technologies in December 2010, it adds a cloud and mobile-based inspection and defects management suite (something which BIW had itself separately developed for PDA devices in 2006), and enhances its mobile computing competencies. In my view (see also 2014: year of mobile?), Conject had been lagging behind its competitors in delivering mobile capabilities, so this deal starts to close the gap; Conject’s website already includes a page on “Inspection and Defects Management application OPR6”.

Franck MeudecWapp6

Founded by Frank Meudec, right, in April 2009, Wapp6 has some 20 employees and over 400 customers including Societe Generale, BNP Paribas Real Estate, and Credit Agricole. If the name of its founder sounds familiar, it’s perhaps because he was previously (2003-2008) with BuildOnline (MD southern EMEA in 2006), later CTSpace and Sword CTSpace (well before its November 2011 acquisition by iDox and merger into McLaren Software), so he will be very familiar with the European SaaS construction collaboration sector.

In October 2010, Melbourne, Australia-based collaboration vendor and Conject competitor Aconex signed a deal with Wapp6 to provide sales, marketing and advisory services to facilitate the expansion of Aconex in France. That deal has presumably since lapsed; instead, Wapp6 will help Conject grow in the French market, while extending its reach in Conject’s core UK and mainland European markets.

Update (30 January 2014) – Conject has today published an interview with Franck Meudec on its blog, while some of his new UK colleagues have been tweeting iPad screengrabs from the new Conject Mobile reporting tools.

Conject Mobile defects reporting

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2014/01/conject-acquires-aec-mobile-specialist-wapp6/

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