Apr 25 2006

Google calendar

I sometimes find it difficult to reconcile my work, social and domestic commitments, particularly when my wife (Helen) and I have to juggle responsibility for taking and collecting our two children from school and after-school club (plus, in my daughter’s case, Brownies and Woodcraft Folk too). Microsoft Outlook has been OK as a personal calendar and to manage meetings with colleagues within BIW, but I have to update it regularly as plans are changed to accommodate work appointments, drinks after work, babysitters, football trips, cycling club meetings and the like (and the paper calendar on our kitchen wall is covered in scribbles to reflect the constant changes).

I have therefore started experimenting with Google Calendar (you can export all your Outlook appointments direct to Google). I have invited Helen to share my calendars: a work-focused calendar which she can see, plus another devoted to the school routine that either of us can update (hopefully creating a ‘single version of the truth’ online will help avoid any confusion as to who is supposed to be doing what, when and where – if there is any doubt on the latter, the Calendar solution is also conveniently linked to Google Maps). By merging several calendars together in a single view, I can see both domestic and professional commitments at a glance; we can also use the ‘create event’ feature to invite people round, etc.

As another web-based service from Google, I think this feature has great potential for helping people to coordinate their commitments across all their various spheres of activities or interests. Looking within AEC project teams, for example, individuals may have domestic calendars, corporate calendars and project team calendars (and perhaps, in some cases, several of the latter). The logical step must be to make these various Google calendars interoperable with the calendar features often included within project extranet solutions

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2006/04/google_calendar/

Apr 25 2006

Legal issues: e-tendering

Further to my 7 April post regarding legal advice on extranets, I came across another useful article I missed recently – coincidentally, by Anthony Lee’s Fladgate Fielder colleague Gillian Birkby, but this time in "Building" magazine and covering e-tendering and the RICS e-tendering guidance note (see my 26 November 2005 post): Wired up was published 2 December 2005 and is reproduced on the Fladgate website here.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2006/04/legal_issues_et/

Apr 25 2006

Eight SaaS myths

Business Week has an interesting article by Jeffrey Kaplan of THINKstrategies detailing eight Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) myths:

  1. SaaS is still relatively new and untested.
  2. SaaS is just another version of the failed application service provider, or ASP, and hosting models of the past, and will suffer
  3. SaaS only relieves companies of the up-front costs of traditional software licenses.
  4. SaaS is only for small- and midsize businesses and will not be accepted by large-scale organizations.
  5. SaaS only applies to applications such as customer relationship management and salesforce automation.
  6. SaaS will only have a minor impact on the software industry and will fade over time.
  7. It will be easy for the established software vendors to offer SaaS and dominate this market.
  8. SaaS is only for corporate users.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2006/04/eight_saas_myth/

Apr 24 2006

“Plotting Workflow in the AEC industry”

Thanks to my latest CADwire Insights Weekly, I was pointed to a recently published white paper from Cyon Research (free to download) on managing reprographics in construction projects, with a particular focus on a solution from Océ (Océ Repro Desk Professional).

It raises some interesting issues for construction project teams, particularly those which have been increasingly using web-based project extranet tools, and shifting towards a "less-paper" working environment. Of course, there will always be a requirement for paper at site level (I have visited several projects where the extranet solution is configured to send drawings to a bureau so that site-based staff can have printed drawings for on-site use), but many office-based individuals are happy to produce, publish, download, view and mark-up drawings online, without resorting to printed plot files.

The white paper says extranets "are designed to manage and distribute electronic documents but do not control or automate the thorny problem of getting the plots right". As one might expect of a $3bn-plus supplier of printing and copying technology, Océ looks to fill this gap and to put "reprographers" at the heart of the project team’s IT strategy on the premise, as Cyon put it, that "paper is essential".

The paper doesn’t really detail any integration between the Océ product and other solutions such as extranets. While the latter may not be perfect for managing reprographic tasks, they offer huge benefits in terms of the completeness of the repository (a single source of all project-related information) and their audit trail functions, and, in many projects, they have prompted major changes in individuals’ behaviours, cutting their reliance on time-consuming and expensive-to-produce paper-based drawings, with corresponding cost savings and other quasi-tangible benefits.

As Cyon admit, some team members may not be "delighted" at "placing the reprographics firm in the role of a key enabler in the process". The Océ solution may be a forward step for teams which are still heavily reliant on paper, but it doesn’t appear from the white paper that it will reduce that reliance or reduce the volume of paper produced, nor will it deliver many of other tangible and quasi-tangible benefits experienced by extranet-enabled project teams.

Update 25 April 2006: I re-read the white paper on the train today (on-screen – Midland Mainline services include laptop power connections at most seats – see GNER post). I can see how the Océ solution might help projects which are being managed using largely conventional communications, but the suggested upside is not as convincing when pitched against a sophisticated extranet solution.

I think Cyon also underestimates the print management capabilities of some extranet solutions. BIW Information Channel, for example, offers an optional Autocad plug-in which allows designers to publish their CAD files to the extranet (in the required exchange format(s), etc, with the native file still available as a download) with a single click of a button.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2006/04/plotting_workfl/

Apr 20 2006

Space in the wrong place on FT

A bit off-topic, but I couldn’t help smile when my RSS reader pointed me at a Financial Times news story about a supermarket trolley manufacturer. A space in the wrong place can be embarrassing: view the photo.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2006/04/space_in_the_wr/

Apr 18 2006

Extranet use: “anything but widespread”

According to an informal reader survey by US online mag ConstrucTech, while the team concept is alive and well, and web-based collaboration technology has stepped to the fore, use of these solutions is anything but widespread throughout the marketplace: "only 14% are using Web-based collaboration technology on all projects".

"The norm in the market is using this technology on a few projects — 40% of respondents indicated this to be true. Roughly 32% of respondents indicated they are not using Web-based collaborative technology at all. … Experts believe the key for these solutions being embraced with greater abundance is large contractors and owner organizations dictating their use to team members during the preconstruction stage."

So: still substantial scope for growth in the US collaboration market, and the figures are not dissimilar to surveys undertaken in the UK (only last month, I mentioned a CAD managers’ survey that suggested extranets were used for 13.8% of information issues).

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2006/04/extranet_use_an/

Apr 18 2006

“Not if, but when: the future is SaaS”

Some commentators, it appears, are prepared to say that Software-as-a-Service will replace ‘on-premise’ as the dominant application software model, according to The Power in the Cloud, an article at ASPnews.com.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2006/04/not_if_but_when/

Apr 17 2006

e-Builder CEO interviewed at AECCafe.com

AECCafe.com features an interview by Susan Smith with Jon Antevy, CEO of US collaboration provider e-Builder.com, partly hooked by e-Builder’s recent moves to support Blackberry users (see 10 April post). It’s an interesting article in three ways:

  • it gives a different ‘spin’ on the traditional ‘who are your competitors’ question;
  • it looks at one way in which e-Builder builds its user relationships; and
  • it also shows that e-Builder – like Constructware – is moving beyond the core area of collaboration on project documents and drawings.

Smith starts out by asking why many software companies fall short of providing something for the contractor and construction professional. According to Antevy, it’s because most contractors are still wedded to old ways of doing business. When asked who e-Builder’s competitors were, Antevy said:

"It’s not Buzzsaw, Primavera or Meridian; it’s Microsoft Excel, and email that are our competitors. Those same people who aren’t connected are certainly not getting press releases over email. e-Builder clients, CIOs of large construction or architectural firms, for example, don’t know about various goings on in the software business as they are focused on their day-to-day work. We know who to target, and we’re also going to fill in the gaps as well."

Smith describes e-Builder’s Enterprise offering, and points out that recent enhancements were all focused on email notifications (reducing their number, making them easier to read, etc). "Blending old with the new," is the way Antevy looks at the direction e-Builder is headed, says Smith.

I was struck by a note about e-Builder’s annual user conference, due to take place this November. e-Builder apparenly plans to implement 50 % of the top 15 features requested by users.

"Within one month of leaving the conference, users will see about 7 or 8 features show up in the enhancements," explained Antevy. "The top features were the ones that everybody agreed on. Obviously we had all our resources on this, it wasn’t easy to do, but it showed them that year after year, when they come to our conference that’s what they get back."

That’s good marketing to existing users (and good PR), helping reinforce the bond by showing that the firm not only listens to their ideas, but puts those ideas into action. Antevy continues:

"Another major release of e-Builder comes out this June or July. We started with document management and project management as the foundation, and now we’ve added schedule management and cost management. … Those terms mean a lot of different things to different people. We’re selling cost management to a hospital and that’s different than selling it to a condominium developer. Each of those modules have a lot of depth with each of those verticals. We spend a lot of time making sure we address each of their issues."

These moves can hardly be surprising, particularly in the context of the recent Autodesk acquisition of US competitor Constructware (see 2 April post). Part of the rationale for this deal was that Constructware had functionality (including cost management) that Autodesk Buzzsaw lacked. Despite Antevy’s claims that his competitors are "Excel and email", e-Builder clearly sees itself in competition with the new enhanced Autodesk Constructware solution.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2006/04/ebuilder_ceo_in/

Apr 17 2006

“$275m property e-manager project”

Wow! What an eye-catching Australian IT headline! Aconex must be making mega-bucks – to the uninitiated, this 21 March story looks like a $275 million deal!

The headline perhaps has more to do with a misunderstanding by the journalist (Kelly Mills) or sub-editor responsible. As Aconex’s 14 March news release makes clearer, the price tag relates to the total capital project value (ie: the actual cost of designing and constructing the project). The value of the IT element deal to Aconex is actually likely to be a small fraction of one per cent.

Sadly, an Australian politician (or, more likely, her civil servant speech writer) repeated the error. In a speech to a Sydney conference the following day (22 March), Senator the Hon Helen Coonan (Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts), told delegates:

"I was also pleased to see that the construction boom is having an effect on the Australian software industry. … Aconex – one of Australia’s fastest growing ICT companies only last week won a major multi-million dollar contract in Vietnam to manage the flow of information and documents on the largest ever property development in Ho Chi Minh City."

Aconex quotes the minister’s remarks in its own 29 March release, without pointing out the over-estimation of the project’s value. Based on my own knowledge of the value of collaboration deals on major AEC projects, I seriously doubt a "million", let alone "multi-million", dollars will be heading Aconex’s way from this deal.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2006/04/275m_property_e/

Apr 12 2006

Crystal Report tools

Meridian Systems, one of the leading US providers of construction project management software, has announced that users of its Prolog solution can now use Crystal Reports, the enterprise reporting tool from Business Objects.

Meridian’s 7 April release says it has signed an OEM agreement with Business Objects to integrate Crystal Reports XI within the Prolog environment, extending users’ report formatting and design capabilities beyond the current capabilities of Prolog’s Report Manager (get more details here).

Three days later, Business Objects issued its own release announcing the launch of Crystal Reports On Demand (crystalreports.com), the first major business intelligence solution to be offered on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) basis. Crystalreports.com is offered free as part of Crystal Reports XI, allowing users to share information simply and securely via the web, without all the hassles associated with conventional hard copy static reports (eg: no more hard-to-track or lost email attachments).

Knowing that Meridian also offers an on-demand version of Prolog: ProjectTalk, I had a quick look to see if the two elements have been combined (ie: ASP collaboration and ASP reporting), but there is – as yet – no mention of Crystal at all. Surely this will be a logical next step?

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2006/04/crystal_report_/

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