Sep 27 2010

KA Connect 2011

Having recently registered to attend ICT4Construction on 28 October (post) – the first construction collaboration-specific conference in the UK, I think, since the NCCTP conference in November 2005 (post) – I have just received notification of a similar event in the USA.

As a follow-up to the KA Connect AEC knowledge and information management event in Chicago (post) which took place in April, Chris Parsons is organising the KA Connect 2011 conference for 27-28 April 2011 in San Francisco, California, promising four sessions packed with blue sky talks, Pecha Kucha talks, panel discussions and break-outs. Sponsors include Axomic, Deltek and Newforma.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2010/09/ka-connect-2011/

Sep 27 2010

Keep taking the tablets

I recently talked to Building magazine’s Stephen Kennett about use of mobile devices such as Apple’s iPad in the construction industry and providing some pointers on who else he might talk to. The resulting article, Keep Taking the Tablets (paywall site: subscription normally required) was published last week (I get a couple of mentions – thanks, Stephen!) and includes some contributions from two players in the construction collaboration sector.

Woobius talked about Woobius Eye (post), seeing the attraction of a bigger screen. “Having more screen to work with is an obvious advantage.”

BIW’s Colin Smith talked about the advantage of some extra processing power to enable you to work offline and then sync all the information with the central database when you get back to the office or somewhere with internet access. The article reports BIW is also developing a location-sensitive application for defects management:

“That’s where we see tools like the iPad being really beneficial,” says Smith. “The trick is to get the device to understand where you are in the building so that it predicts the defects you are likely to come across and generates an appropriate snagging list.”

My attention, though, was particularly drawn to comments by Buro Happold’s Ian Keough. While he has developed a building information model viewing application for the iPad (goBIM – “I wouldn’t have spent all this time developing software if I didn’t think it was the next big thing,”), he also thinks that other operating systems, notably Android, shouldn’t be overlooked – a view I share. Android is “huge” in China and the devices are going to be cheaper, he says. “It’s going to be interesting to see if the big computer and laptop makers pick up Android in the same way as the iPad.”

Not just ‘going to be cheaper’ – are cheaper! Chinese technology vendors, eg ChinaVision, are already advertising Android tablet devices for under £100. [Thanks to Chris Aldridge for the tip!]

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2010/09/keep-taking-the-tablets/

Sep 27 2010

Does “industry leadership” matter?

I was reading comments on LinkedIn about a Pauley Creative blog post by Pritesh Patel (5 reasons why construction companies should be blogging); in the comments, Pritesh argues too many firms make unsubstantiated claims about being market leading, etc, without proving their leadership. A quick look at the websites of several of the longest-established UK-based vendors of construction collaboration technologies, for instance, reveals various similar claims:

  • “market leading online collaboration software for project, programme and organisational management” (4Projects)
  • “rapid industry-wide take-up of our products and services has yielded industry awards and made us the UK market leader”, with “global leader in web-based business applications” in the page title (BIW Technologies)
  • “a world leader in the development of SAAS (Software As A Service) systems used for construction document management and control” (Cadweb)
  • “A global leader in Engineering Content Management and Project Content Management” (Sword CTSpace)
  • “providing class leading project collaboration and document management for over a decade” (Unit4 Collaboration)

Pritesh’s says businesses should prove their industry leadership: they should say what makes them leaders and provide the evidence to back up their claims. I worked at BIW from 2000 to 2009 and tried to substantiate the company’s leadership status by quoting statistics on numbers of users/projects/ companies, by highlighting company revenues, by citing third party research, by mentioning industry awards, by talking about innovations, etc, but it was a constant battle to keep one step ahead of competitors.

What matters most, of course, is how much do customers believe or are influenced by these claims. Do the claims made reflect an understanding of customers’ particular needs or interests? Do they want to work with companies that have strong balance sheets, reputations for innovation, extensive world or UK user bases, strong environmental credentials, 24/7 reliability, excellent customer service and so on? And which of these (if any?) matters most? Or are they, these days, simply more concerned about the product and its price? At a recent Constructing Excellence meeting, for instance, I heard talk of industry customers kicking back against paying for “the best”, preferring instead solutions which were fit for purpose or “good enough”.

(Just found another leader…. Over the weekend, a news release popped up in a Google Alert telling me about a “leading provider of web-based construction collaboration software”, Spitfire Management – a company which I confess I had never heard of before in five years blogging about the sector. This New York, USA-based business has just announced its latest release, v4.1, of Spitfire Project Management System, its “comprehensive, browser-based construction project management software”. Welcome to the leadership battle!)

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2010/09/does-industry-leadership-matter/

Sep 23 2010

Yechte Consulting: managing offshore design costs

Earlier this week at the RIBA in London I had coffee with Ben Tellin, a trained architect and managing director of Yechte Consulting. His company, with bases in London and Bangalore, India, provides off-shore outsourcing services to architects and engineers (often adding an international dimension to the network of people already collaborating on a UK design project, for example), but I learned that Yechte had also developed some project management software to help its customers manage their project assignments (which links back to my recent look at practice management solution providers: Union Square acquires Archetype).

Globalisation and recession

Ben explained that it was often difficult to persuade small UK design firms – his target market – that they might outsource CAD, BIM or 3D visualisation work to another company, particularly if they had traditionally always managed these tasks in-house and in the UK. We talked for a while about individual mindsets, about company cultures, and about industry structures that stopped people collaborating – particularly where that collaboration required communication with workers established in another time-zone, and involved use of ICT tools. I have often stressed that successful online collaboration is 80% people and processes and only 20% technology, and Ben agreed that the main challenge was to get people to recognise some new industry realities, not to focus on the communication issues:

  • “Globalisation is changing how we do things and too many SMEs don’t think about the opportunities this brings….”
  • “It’s not about ‘taking our work away from us’.” Ben explained that customers often simply wanted additional resource available on tap to produce a specified set of deliverables.
  • In a particularly cost-conscious marketplace, being able to outsource quality work quickly and at a competitive price can help firms win projects they might otherwise have lost.
  • “You can still retain control and involvement”. Ben explained how his Bangalore team will often work UK hours so that their working days coincide with the customer’s, and how Yechte’s project management platform (a bespoke development based on an open-source application) allowed customers to see exactly what had been delivered, how much time had been used to create it, what budget remained, etc.

Managing outsourced work

After a quick look at the project management application (functionality includes document sharing, email, calendar, contacts, tasks, invoicing and reporting tools), I concluded it wasn’t competing with the sophisticated Software-as-a-Service construction collaboration technologies that are often used today by project teams. However, I did wonder if Yechte’s project control tools might be capable of integration into the dashboard of existing platforms so that design companies could manage their design processes and costs within the same system they used to collaborate with the rest of a project team. And given Bangalore’s reputation as a hub of software expertise, it is likely Yechte could quickly develop the necessary tools (Ben is also very interested in the potential of AEC applications for mobile devices, too).

Yechte’s website incorporates a blog, and has links to the company’s presences on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Groupspaces and DocStoc, plus online telephony or chat services Skype and Google Talk. These were important, Ben said, as, among other things, they provided low-cost means for customers to talk direct to colleagues at Yechte and to establish and maintain better interpersonal relationships despite the geographical distances involved.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2010/09/yechte-consulting-managing-offshore-design-costs/

Sep 23 2010

BIW pushes its low-risk message

A (rare) tweet from BIW Technologies* alerted me to a new article on the UK construction collaboration vendor’s website, reproduced from Architect Builder Contractor & Developer (ABC&D).

In Controlling Project Outcomes, BIW CEO Colin Smith warns potential collaboration customers about “low-cost suppliers who fail to include sufficient support for the solution that they provide”. He goes on: “it can be easy for small, poorly financed, poorly resourced vendors to create attractive, low-priced SaaS products“.

Having rubbished the low-cost solution vendors (I wonder just who he had in mind?), the article goes on to highlight the risks in adopting a DIY approach to project collaboration (SharePoint springs to mind here – I’ve written before about SharePoint-based solutions from Cadac and Bentley, among others, and there’s an interesting article in Cadalyst this week). Instead, Colin urges customers to use experienced specialist vendors; “The responsibility for researching requirements, building and delivering the solution and supporting it once it is up and running is completely taken off your shoulders“, he says.

Incidentally, this is a related argument about risk and trust to that recently put forward by Aconex‘s Rob Phillpot who blogged in July about the risks of one organisation controlling a collaboration platform:

“Can you imagine the time wasted, the potential for disputes and the lack of open information sharing between parties if all the project data was being stored behind ONE organization’s system? A recipe for disaster. Or at the very least, a highly inefficient project.”

Market pressures

Any way, back to Colin’s article…. I know BIW is not the only established vendor challenged by new kids on the block or by in-house offerings. As previously discussed on this blog, the recession has meant that the notoriously cost-conscious construction industry has been looking even more closely at how much they pay for all products, materials and services, and ICT is no exception.

Over the past couple of years I have talked about several start-ups who have opted to use low prices to gain a foothold in the collaboration market, including e-Grou, Incite Toolbox, ShowDocument, drop.io, Clouds UK, Woobius, Colaab, GlassCubes, Collabor8-online and FileGenius (and there are many more; just look at this Wikipedia list) – some focused on the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) sector, others more generic. Their proliferation obviously suggests that their owners think there is a market opportunity, but it may be short-lived.

  1. Even in a recession, construction remains a risk-averse industry and Colin’s arguments will find a receptive audience in many organisations.
  2. A well-publicised example of a low-cost solution jeopardising a project could have a devastating impact on that end of the market (anyone know of a project hampered by the failure of its collaboration platform?).
  3. The AEC market will only support so many low-cost collaboration vendors, so there is likely to be some rationalisation in due course.
  4. That rationalisation might be hastened if longer-established providers develop competitive lower-cost solutions that leverage the parent brand (ideally, without cannibalising sales of the main platform).
  5. I think some of the newer technology providers will accept the commercial realities and look to build partnerships with or be acquired by established vendors. For example, Bob Leung explained to me recently how he thought Woobius could be used for early-stage projects, with more sophisticated systems used subsequently to manage actual project delivery (post).
  6. Finally (for now), some of the new startups have developed good solutions using state-of-the-art tools and techniques, not shackled by legacy systems or older technologies (not easy for established players to emulate unless they invest heavily – as Aconex did recently: post). What a great opportunity for some of the longer-established providers to learn from and, where appropriate, to adopt some of the approaches that have made these startups a threat?

A bloggy after-thought

After I re-tweeted BIW’s tweet, someone replied that Colin Smith’s article would have made a great blog post, so it’s a shame that it appears on a static web-page rather than somewhere that allows comments, sharing and feedback. In the meantime, feel free to comment here.

[* Disclosure: I worked for BIW Technologies from 2000 to May 2009; pwcom.co.uk Ltd has since undertaken PR and marketing consultancy projects for the company.]

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2010/09/biw-pushes-its-low-risk-message/

Sep 22 2010

Union Square acquires Archetype

I recently read about a series of Autumn Cloud Computing events that Nottingham-based Union Square Software is organising. The series starts at the RIBA in London on 13 October with a seminar entitled Maximising Profit – Project Accounting For Professionals, Union Square having added project accounting to its Workspace product earlier this year (post). The company’s capabilities in this area are likely to expand still further, though, as Union Square has just announced the acquisition of Glasgow-based Archetype Software, a specialist provider of practice management software for architects and engineers.

Archetype has focused on providing email, drawing, job costing and fee management solutions to SME firms of professionals – much the same kind of market that Union Square has targeted – and Richard Vincent, Union Square’s MD, believes the acquisition strengthens the combined offering:

“Strategically this adds significant horse power to our portfolio of solutions and will significantly strengthen our offering for small and medium sized practices. The market for practice wide data and document management systems is maturing rapidly and our combined resources and knowledge will enable us to deliver better value and sophistication for this part of the market.”

Sounds logical, but there will be cynics who see the deal more as Union Square acquiring a rival in the practice management field. Indeed, a couple of years ago at Sustainability Now, I talked to an Archetype employee about its product offering and, yes, they did regard Union Square as their principal competitor (post).

Just as architects have suffered during the current recession (I write this on the day that Architects’ Journal reported that the sixth largest practice in the UK Archial is going into administration, with architects’ workloads dropping for the sixth straight month), I suspect the practice management software sector must also be going through a tough time (Union Square’s most recent trading statement admits 2009 was a tough year with profit levels reduced). A good time, perhaps, to pick up a competitor and immediately gain a bigger share of the market. (Archial, by the way, was a Union Square customer.)

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2010/09/union-square-acquires-archetype/

Sep 16 2010

Construction Computing Awards 2010 voting begins

Voting for the 2010 Construction Computing Awards has opened, with 20 of the 24 categories to be decided by online votes, and four to be decided by a panel of judges – something of a departure from previous years’ practice.

Of course, you’ve got to be in it to win it, and there are some notable absentees this year. There is no sign of Asite, BIW Technologies or Sword-CTSpace, for example, in the document and content management category. This is still the closest to a category for construction collaboration or ‘extranet’ technologies, I think, but the organisers have never taken up my suggestion (first mooted in 2006) of a category expressly for collaboration systems – despite the wide industry use of the term, and despite most of the platforms offering much more than just document management.

But the other collaboration-related vendors make up for these providers’ absence (sometimes – to me – in some strange categories, but that’s long been the case):

  • 4Projects has been nominated in five categories (Document and Content Management Software Product of the Year, Product of the Year, Company of the Year, Mobile Technology Product of the Year and Best Use of Social Media – a new category – see my pwcom blog post on this)
  • UNIT4 – formerly Business Collaborator– and Aconex are each nominated four times in the same categories (Document and Content Management, e-Commerce Product of the Year, Product of the Year and Company of the Year). Woobius also appears four times (One to Watch: Company, One to Watch: Product, Document and Content Management Product of the Year, and Best Use of Social Media)
  • MPS is nominated three times (in Project Planning Product of the Year, IT project of the year: and Best Use of IT in Construction (Public Sector))
  • Union Square Software has two mentions (in Document and Content Management, and Product of the Year)
  • Autodesk Buzzsaw appears once (in Project Planning Product – another bit of a strange one, I think!) as does Causeway Technologies‘ ECM (in Document and Content Management), though Autodesk and Causeway also feature strongly in other categories – reflecting the wider breadth of their respective product portfolios

Apart from the aforementioned firms, the remaining contenders in the Document and Content Management category are firmly in the document management field: RedSky IT‘s Summit, and Watson and Sole‘s INTELI-SCAN.

Update (17 September 2010): A special mention also for IBE Partnership whose CICLOPS system was shown at Be2camp 2008 (which I helped run). A collaborative working tool focussed on lean construction and based on the Last Planner approach, it has two nominations, in the Project Planning and Company to Watch categories.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2010/09/construction-computing-awards-2010-voting-begins/

Sep 14 2010

Aconex releases v.10.0

Starting yesterday, users of the Aconex Software-as-a-Service construction collaboration platform will be gradually being moved to a new release of the solution. Version 10.0 has been a long time in development, having apparently been the subject of in-depth user research, detailed staff input and some expert work by one of the world’s leading usability consultancies (this was something highlighted almost ten months ago when I interviewed Aconex co-founder and general manager, product, Rob Phillpot). The result is claimed to be “easier to use and faster to get around”.

A YouTube video featuring the engaging Tref Gare (part of the Aconex product team – others of whom also feature in the video) has been produced and summarises the key changes in a very watchable three minutes and eleven seconds.

The key changes include (in summary):

  • a rebuilt online support site named Support Central that streamlines contact with the Aconex support team and also allows users to request and help prioritise new features
  • a configurable document numbering scheme builder
  • new features in the Tender and Bid Management module
  • the ability to convert marked-up drawings to PDF
  • addition of an Italian language version (in addition to English, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, French, Spanish and Portuguese) – no doubt hastened by Aconex’s securing of the Strait of Messina project (which I mentioned in July)

For those wanting more detail, the changes are also covered in a 48-page PDF document.

My take

While not perhaps as clean and simple as the Woobius project dashboard (released last week; post), that is hardly surprising: this is a very different type of platform, a feature-rich system aimed at supporting complex projects and programmes of work and providing a wide range of processes to them.

Considering the size of the Aconex user base, the geographic spread of its user base, the wide variety of projects and multi-project programmes supported (including mega-projects such as the Panama Canal Locks), and the need to assimilate the different requirements of now seven different languages, the development of a new user interface is no small task. Aconex has also devoted considerable time – and, no doubt, considerable expense – to ensuring the user interface is as intuitive to use as possible, and that navigation is optimised (providing a simplified two-click level of navigation around all parts of the system, fewer page downloads to complete processes, etc).

On the face of it, these might appear simple things for competitors to emulate, but the streamlining of many of the back-end processes needed to deliver information to the end-user’s screen will require some considerable development effort over and above the user interface changes, and not all rivals will have such a diverse range of client and project team requirements driving their software development roadmaps. Aconex’s new look desktop will also make some rival systems look somewhat dated and clunky by comparison; it will not be easy for them to quickly emulate Aconex’s slick and speedy delivery of data and functionality.

The Aconex video also hints at the imminent release of new features. Indeed, apart from the aforementioned improvements to Tender and Bid Management, there is little in this new release of the possibilities hinted at by Rob last November; no new building information modelling (BIM) capabilities, social or multi-media tools, no third party mobile apps or gadgets, for example. But it sounds as though there will be further announcements that Aconex intend to use to put further distance between themselves and their rival collaboration vendors.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2010/09/aconex-releases-v100/

Sep 13 2010

Woobius pushing the self-service SaaS offer

From its April 2009 launch, Woobius* has been looking to differentiate itself from competitors by virtue of its simplicity (see posts 1, 2). It still believes this is the right approach (albeit less overtly) and while most of its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) construction collaboration competitors, UK and overseas, still employ conventional sales and deployment consultants, Woobius has developed its offering so that project teams can quickly – and simply – create a project team collaboration environment in just minutes.

Social promotion

Among the construction collaboration technology vendors that I monitor, I think Woobius is perhaps the most prolific in its use of social media, and over the past 2-3 weeks it has been making a series of interesting Twitter announcements and blog posts. In late August, we heard about the new Woobius correspondence module, last week we heard about the new Woobius project dashboard, and predating both were Tweets about an online tie-up with UK industry title, Building. Last week at London’s Building Centre (also on Twitter), I met up with Woobius luminaries Bob Leung and James Goodfellow to learn more about these developments.

Licensed to encourage collaboration

When I first blogged about Woobius, the collaboration proposition was all about simplicity. This was a web-based collaboration application designed by architects for architects, and aiming to be simple to use. Bob says it does not seek to compete direct with sophisticated rival products (eg: 4Projects, Asite, BIW, etc) – indeed he sees potential synergies where Woobius’ simple approach is used for early-stage feasibility, concept, speculative or competition-type projects with the heavy-duty systems later used to manage the complexities of major project delivery. However, he feels there is also room in the market for a web-based system that can be used to manage small-scale projects (small office or domestic extension or refurbishment schemes, for example) that will never justify the use of a high-end platform. His optimism is perhaps justified, as he says the Woobius collaboration platform has amassed some 8,500 users since its launch.

Less overtly simple

The original overt focus on “simply simple” collaboration has been diluted somewhat in the new iteration of Woobius’s website, though the strapline currently survives in the homepage title. Now the focus of the home page is ‘manage and organise your projects’ with the target markets clearly identifed – project managers, architects, engineers, contractors – and the platform is firmly stamped “For Construction” amid a range of endorsements from happy Woobius users. However, the hand-drawn sketches that have been such a feature of Woobius’ web pages and the videos remain. Bob explained they wanted to make the Woobius product offering explicit, and then use the images of the product, including the new dashboard, to demonstrate that the product was clear and simple to understand and use.

Users can now sign up to use Woobius completely online, creating a platform that is accessible “off the shelf”, to use Bob’s words, to any number of authorised users without requiring any vendor set-up or configuration. Having no limit on users (a common feature when vendors launched their platforms in the early 2000s – though Asite has since offered a per-seat licensing option) is a key, says Bob:

“In a margin-sensitive and often techno-phobic industry like construction, it is silly to expect designers, contractors, consultants and the rest of the supply chain to pay for individual log-ins. We want to encourage take-up and use. We think our unlimited users approach encourages collaboration at an individual project level; it also encourages ‘viral’ collaboration, with existing users looking to use Woobius on subsequent projects for other clients.”

For me, being able to sign-up to use the service online is closer to ideal of Software-as-a-Service, whereby an account can be opened at any time and payments made online without the intervention of a vendor’s sales or deployment staff. Such self-service approaches mean the service can be switched on immediately when it’s convenient for the customer, without a delay while accounts are created, contracts and service level agreements signed, etc. From a Woobius point of view, more importantly, this approach is also much more scalable; the resulting challenge, therefore, is to make as many people aware of the platform as possible.

The basic Woobius platform was originally free, with more storage and other ‘bells and whistles’ offered for a low fee (eg: £10 per Gb per month), but Bob and his team have kept this under constant review. In February this year (see Woobius simplifies pricing of “simply simple” collaboration solution), they revised the Woobius pricing structure, and they have taken the opportunity of this latest revamp to make further revisions (read: increases), drawing heavily on results from user surveys the company has undertaken. The result is a pricing structure that highlights the most popular option – ‘Team‘: £50/month, for up to 10 projects, 10GB storage – in between £25 ‘Solo‘ and £199 power user ‘Company‘ solutions. At either extreme, a free trial option remains (in small print) and there is an unlimited ‘Enterprise‘ offer from £195/month upwards. In a still very price-sensitive market, these are prices that are still likely to be attractive to the many potential customers whose project requirements fall short of the high-end systems, which Bob freely admits have paved the way over the past decade for other collaboration businesses to enter the market.

Building promotion

Given the target markets for Woobius, the microsite hosted by Building makes sense; the title, after all, has the best pan-industry readership of any of the UK construction industry weekly magazines – stretching across industry professionals, contractors, suppliers and clients – and banner and MPU advertising on its website will reach a similarly wide audience, including overseas readers.

Building, like other construction titles, is having to cope, post-recession, with falling readership figures and dwindling advertising and recruitment revenues, and the challenges of managing a still-evolving hybrid print/online business models (most of the website’s editorial content disappeared behind a paywall earlier this year), so a promotional relationship with a collaboration vendor will be an interesting test of the publisher’s ability to reach an online audience with details of this online product/service.

Woobius, of course, is not the first vendor to advertise with Building (Business Collaborator, now UNIT4 Collaboration Services, has promoted its services through Building in the past, and while at BIW I negotiated a year-long online editorial-related advertising deal in 2008-09. The difference here, though, is that both BC and BIW still needed their staff to follow-up and close any sales leads generated by their advertising; Woobius, by contrast, will be able to offer potential customers immediate access to its online platform. And if Woobius makes a success of this initial promotional foray, quickly converting eyeballs into paying users, I expect it will be looking to expand its brand awareness campaign to other channels.

[* Disclosure: Woobius is a past PR consultancy client of pwcom.co.uk Ltd]

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2010/09/woobius-pushing-the-self-service-saas-offer/

Sep 03 2010

Corecon goes mobile too

In May 2010, I wrote about the launch of Corecon V7 in the US market. Like several other construction collaboration software vendors this year (some already launched – eg: Asite’s cMob, Unit4 – some impending – eg: CTSpace, Aconex), Corecon has just released a mobile product tailored for use on smartphones and tablet computers (see news release).

For a change, it’s not just an iPhone app: “Corecon Mobile is compatible with Apple iPhone and iPad, Google Android, HP Palm, Microsoft Windows Mobile, and RIM Blackberry”, says the news release.

I asked Norman Wendl, President of Corecon, about Corecon Mobile, wondering if it was actually several different products, or a  view of Corecon v7 that has been optimised for browsers on all smart mobile devices? His response confirmed my view:

“Corecon Mobile is a separate web solution from Corecon V7 that is optimized for the various browsers on smartphone devices. The navigation is completely different from V7 because of the screen size and lack of mouse or pointing device. In addition, code has been added to the solution to make the necessary finer adjustments for each type of device (ie: Blackberry or Apple iPhone). This also eliminates the need to create separate solutions for each phone. Another reason for being a separate solution is that not all features are available on the Mobile app. For example, estimating is only available in V7 and not in the Mobile solution.”

Corecon Mobile is free to all users of Corecon V7, and it also updates in real-time without requiring synchronization. Norman explained:

“Since Corecon Mobile and V7 are both web-based solutions that connect to the same database, synchronization is not needed. For example, if a user enters a timecard in the Mobile app, he/she will immediately see it in V7 and vice versa.”

My view

Generally, I welcome the emergence of mobile functionality to support construction collaboration, particularly where it enables seamless integration with other users accessing information on conventional hardware, and there appear to be similarities in the approaches of Corecon and of Asite with its Appbuilder outputs, which I reviewed recently (post).

There are point solutions (eg: Foreman’s Mate, Site Clean-Up) that allow users to send email notifications, but I have long argued that it is more elegant to capture all project-related communications in one central, auditable repository – accessible by any authorised team member, anytime, anywhere and on any device – and, as a SaaS enthusiast, I think browser-based solutions should win out in a battle against proprietary platform-specific apps.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2010/09/corecon-goes-mobile-too/

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