May 08 2008

Causeway: ECL to be rebranded

The Elstree Computing Ltd business, acquired by Causeway last July (see post), is to be rebranded and integrated into the Causeway Group – according to Causeway’s latest news release. ECL will become Causeway’s Design and Cost Management Solutions division. It’s not clear if ECL’s Information Manager will be realigned with Causeway’s ECM solutions, which include the group’s construction collaboration application.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2008/05/causeway-ecl-to/

May 07 2008

Think 08

Not exactly heaving with visitors but moderately well attended and the exhibition has some interesting stands.

So far I have spoken to Consense (online consultation), UrbanBuzz, the European Construction Institute (Clive Winkler is an old friend), TPS (former colleagues), Integrated Environmental Solutions Ltd (one of the few IT firms represented), WRAP, Jon De Souza of Constructing Excellence, and organiser and fellow blogger Phil Clark.

Update (2130hrs): I did also manage – if only briefly as I had to collect my kids from after-school club – to meet up with fellow bloggers Mel Starrs (Elemental) and Martin Brown (iSite) at the end of the afternoon (yes, we do actually get out and meet people in the real world!).

Among the various brochures I collected, I picked up copies of two magazines, Sustainable Business and Sustain. Last month also saw the inaugural issue of EcoExecutive and Construction Computing stable-mate Green I.T.. If nothing else, our heightened awareness of sustainability issues is promoting healthy growth in the publications market (and giving me more paper to recycle).

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2008/05/think-08/

May 07 2008

Breeding toxins from dead PCs

I am off later this afternoon to Think 08 sustainability event at the ExCel in east London (which I can just see through the haze across the River from where I live in south-east London) – where (time-permitting) I also hope to meet up with two or three fellow bloggers (see iSite post).

While on the subject of sustainability, there was a depressing article in yesterday’s Guardian newspaper on the toxic impact of old personal computers. It includes this excellent quote from Tony Roberts, founder of Computer Aid International – a charity registered with the Environment Agency as an official e-waste treatment company:

“When you look at the whole product lifetime of a computer 75% of the environmental damage is done before the computer is switched on for the first time. … It is the production, the mining, the factories producing the kit and the use of toxic materials – that is where the environmental damage is done.”

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2008/05/breeding-toxins/

May 02 2008

SaaS market “to undergo very rapid revenue growth”

 

Recent market research conducted by UK-based Ovum suggests the SaaS (software as a service) market is set to undergo very rapid revenue growth. The company forecasts that the revenues generated by SaaS vendors will increase, in some regions, by at least 50% each year for the next four years (source: news from the Sofnet conference).

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2008/05/saas-market-to/

May 01 2008

Another provider blog

A comment from US construction collaboration technology provider e-Builder‘s CEO Jon Antevy on my recent post, Getting Won Over, includes a link to his own blog – with the snappy (not) title “Construction Project Management and Collaboration” – begun late last year.

By my reckoning that makes five blogs from construction collaboration technology vendors (in date order):

Have I missed any?

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2008/05/another-provide/

Apr 30 2008

Desktop tools

UK construction collaboration technology provider Asite is now offering a desktop application, Asite Navigator, integrated with its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering.

The tool is described by Asite as “an innovative client application (ie: installed on your PC) that removes the need for you to manage files manually between your office and your collaboration environment”. In short, it is a publishing tool aimed at designer users who might need to synchronise large numbers of files between online and offline environments. It costs £15 per month.

I’m not sure it’s exactly ‘innovative’ (is it “something like nothing done or experienced or created before”?). UK rival 4Projects has long had its own 4Projects desktop application that gives users “an alternative method of interacting with the extranet, with files and folders seamlessly integrated within their existing file system”. While not a core feature of 4Projects’ SaaS application, it is also an option clearly aimed at designers, and, unlike the Asite offering, it’s free to 4Projects users.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2008/04/desktop-tools/

Apr 30 2008

Microsoft: SaaS update

It’s difficult to avoid talk of Microsoft at the moment, what with talk of its (stalled?) bid for Yahoo (post) and recent falling profits; what interested me last week was news of Microsoft beginning trials of web-based Office, and its later Live Mesh announcement. Here’s a quick update….

Web-based Office

According to the Times:

Microsoft is poised to cast off a decades-old model of installing programs such as Word and Excel on computers prior to shipping and instead charge consumers to access them on a monthly basis.

The software giant has said it will begin trials of a product that would deliver some of its most iconic programs, including the Office suite, to consumers via the internet, meaning that programs like Word would no longer sit on a user’s PC.

Consumers would instead access Microsoft’s Office Suite – including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, and other programs… via the web as part of a monthly fee. Their documents would also sit on Microsoft’s servers.

Microsoft has not said how much the subscription will cost, or when the product is likely to be released, though it suggested it could be introduced by the end of the year.

The move appears to be part of a Microsoft effort to resist Google‘s incursions into its productivity suite territory via Google Docs (with its web-delivered word processing, spreadsheets and presentation applications), by creating its own SaaS offering.

(BTW: Aconex MD and blogger Leigh Jasper has written a couple of interesting posts – see Google Docs, a competitor to construction collaboration tools? and Can you help me? – about how Google Docs did not offer a viable alternative for construction teams wanting to manage project data online.)

Live Mesh

Microsoft announced its Live Mesh vision last Wednesday (see BBC news story, and FAQ: Making sense of Live Mesh), saying it wanted to help users synchronise data across multiple devices and online, blurring the distinction between running software and storing data on a desktop and “in the cloud”, and reflecting, yet again, Microsoft’ss “software plus services” strategy. Reaction has been mixed (see SaaS week post).

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2008/04/microsoft-saas/

Apr 29 2008

McKinsey talks up SaaS again

Management consultants McKinsey have again talked up the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) opportunity (see post, McKinsey surveys the new software landscape, by Nick Carr) – almost exactly a year since I last wrote about them in this context. Carr writes:

… software-as-a-service is rapidly “becoming mainstream,” with three-quarters of software buyers saying they are “favorably disposed to adopting SaaS platforms” for software development and deployment. …

Companies report that they will dedicate 19% of their total software budget to applications delivered as services this year, up dramatically from … just a few years ago.

Update (12 May 2008): see related Information Age article.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2008/04/mckinsey-talks/

Apr 29 2008

Business Collaborator grows 20% in 2007

After the February 2008 takeover of Coda plc by by Unit 4 Agresso NV (post), it was announced that Coda would no longer be announcing its 2007 annual results last month, and I expected a delay until we could see how UK construction collaboration technology subsidiary Business Collaborator had fared in 2007. However, presumably still working to the old timetable, BC has just lodged its 2007 results with Companies House, and it looks like the company had a good year.

Turnover was up 19.6% from £2.35m in 2006 to £2.81m (pretty much in line with previous years’ growth), while the company achieved a pre-tax profit of £162,557, up 16.8% from £139,226 in 2006. Staff numbers grew from 24 to 30. On ‘Future outlook’, the directors’ report says: “… the company is well placed to deliver sustainable growth in line with its strategy. Levels of activity since the year end continue to be high.”

I will compare these figures with those of some of BC’s key UK competitors soon; Asite should announce their 2007 figures shortly, so it will be interesting to see if their growth is in line with that achieved by BC or even the whopping pre-MBO 40% achieved by 4Projects last year (incidentally, there’s a video about the MBO on August Equity’s website).

Since the year end (on 31 March 2008), two of the three BC directors – Graham Steinsberg and Bryan Hucker – plus company secretary David Belmont have resigned (following the change of Coda’s ownership; Belmont has taken on a similar role at Turner & Townsend, according to Building this week), leaving MD Sanjeev Shah currently as sole director, with Ms Angela Louise Marlow as new company secretary.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2008/04/business-collab/

Apr 28 2008

ViaNovus: a little background

Further to yesterday’s post on ViaNovus, here’s a little more background on the latest US company just acquired by Sword.

Founded in about 1998 as the Paragon Company in California, the business was co-founded by Darrell Garrett and Arthur Bart-Williams, with backing from angel investor Michael Fields, of New Vista Capital (Bart-Williams later left the business to form a second start-up, Zonux, but Garrett is still associated with the company).

In May 1999, the company announced $2.5m additional funding from Chicago-based Polestar Capital Partners, and changed its name to ViaNovus (‘new way’ in Latin). The funding was to be used to help build a stronger sales and support infrastructure for its Paragon project management system (at the time, the management team included President and CEO Schone Malliet, later – January 2001 – senior VP of Field Operations, Americas for Citadon).

Since then, according to the ViaNovus website, the company has established itself as “the leading provider of owner-focused program management solutions for the construction industry”, focusing on target markets including US federal, state and local governments, airports, rail, bridges/heavy civil, education and utilities. Its clients include URS, KJM & Associates (acquired by Hill International in 2007), Bechtel and Continental Airlines. It says it supplies both off-the-shelf and customised systems to construction firms across the US; I couldn’t find much evidence of traction for Paragon outside the US.

Its products are Microsoft-based and designed to integrate with third-party systems including existing database and Notes-based systems (technology partners include Microsoft, Oracle and Autodesk). Its Paragon system has built-in integration with Microsoft Excel, Word and Project, MAPI-compliant e-mail (eg: MS Outlook and Lotus mail), Adobe Acrobat, Welcom Open Plan and Primavera Project Planner (P3). It appears to be available on both a locally-hosted and a 24/7 application service provision (ASP) model – however, the ASP version was announced in May 2001, suggesting that the Paragon solution was not originally developed as a pure web-native, software-as-a-service (SaaS) application (though, of course, its architecture may have been substantially overhauled since then).

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2008/04/vianovus-a-litt/

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