Oct 17 2005

Designers want CAD plus process support

Just found an AEC Weekly article from 26 September 2005 giving the results of a major European industry study “New Business Potentials for Architects and Engineers” completed for Nemetschek and described as "a thorough investigation of what potential and challenges lie ahead for architects and engineers in Europe and the UK".

When it came to information technology, unsurprisingly – given that the survey was focused on the design community – respondents placed most value on "construction/CAD functionality".

Primary concerns for a successful AEC software solution were ease of use and a good price/performance ratio, but other characteristics, included the provider’s reputation, and the amount of training required, were also important.

The article also noted:

"Interestingly, British respondents identified investment in human resources (38 percent) as a most important aspect of meeting specific challenges in today’s market, while on average only 20 percent of the European practices regarded this aspect as important."

I wondered why my countrymen focused on human issues more than their European mainland counterparts. Initially, I thought it was perhaps because we have a skills shortage in the AEC professions in the UK. But on reading the related press release, I learned the 100 British professionals surveyed were anxious about "tougher competition, more demanding customers, and new legal requirements".

What was expected from software vendors was also spelt out:

"Today, software vendors must offer tools for change and cost management, design management, and collaboration in order to actively support their customers in meeting market expectations….

"… almost one third of the architects and engineers feel it is critical to upgrade CAD systems to solutions that enable an integrated end-to-end workflow. 21 percent are eager to invest in other software and education."

Plainly, simply sharing documents and drawings is no longer enough. For designers, it’s increasingly about managing design team processes and integrating the design function with other project team disciplines.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2005/10/designers_want_/

Oct 17 2005

Retail shake-up

Late on Friday evening, a consortium led by property tycoon Robert Tchenguiz finally agreed a £1.1 billion deal to take over the Somerfield chain of supermarkets (the group has some 814 Somerfield stores and almost 500 Kwik Save outlets). Analysts appear to think the consortium is mainly interested in the group for its high-street properties. If the deal meets with shareholder approval, analysts expect most of Somerfield’s less valuable sites to be auctioned off, followed by a sale and leaseback of the better quality properties (though Tchenguiz was promising to "throw a lot more money" at improving the chain, the Sunday Telegraph reported yesterday – see BBC news item).

Why comment on this acquisition? Well, it may mean a little bit of a shake-up in the workload of two construction collaboration technology businesses. In April this year, Autodesk was celebrating the selection of its Buzzsaw product to manage the delivery of 300 Somerfield projects a year, a deal clinched by Autodesk reseller Excitech. They may well be a little uncertain about the future of that deal now.

Tchenguiz is the major shareholder in embattled rival UK extranet vendor Asite. Assuming he hasn’t got sick of its continued poor financial performance (see 28 September post: ‘Asite books more losses’), he might perhaps look for all those Somerfield projects to be managed using the Asite system instead. This would give Asite’s workload a much-needed boost, but would erase one of Buzzsaw’s few UK case studies.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2005/10/retail_shakeup/

Oct 17 2005

Extranet defined by Wikipedia

The Wikipedia has a page about extranets. From a UK perspective, it helpfully lists all the members of the NCCTP, and includes links to all the NCCTP members, plus about a dozen other providers (some from the construction industry – such as Citadon and Constructware – some not, eg: ProjectFusion, Xerdict), and one or two other links.

However, there is probably still scope to improve the content and perhaps to collaborate on other pages linked to the topic. Last week, Ralph Grabowski was urging readers of WorldCADaccess to update the list of CAD suppliers. Perhaps there should be a similar Wikepedia list of project collaboration or extranet suppliers?

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2005/10/extranet_define/

Oct 17 2005

8Mbps broadband – and more!

Earlier this summer my home broadband connection (from BT) was upgraded to a theoretical 2Mbps, offering me a download speed four times faster than previously (subject, of course, to contention ratio constraints, etc in south-east London). Today, I read that BT is planning to roll-out an 8Mbps service, starting next month – stimulated by competitors such as NTL, Wanadoo, Bulldog, Be and Easynet, some of whom are offering speeds of up to 24Mbps!

These days, more people in the UK go online via broadband than by dial-up – the latter was overtaken in May 2005 and now makes up 50.7% of net connections. According to the BBC, Jupiter Research predicts that by 2010, 80% of online households in Europe will have a broadband connection – a figure that is likely to be even higher in the UK.

There is certainly less and less room for construction project team members to complain about the cost or availability of fast internet connections, and to use this as an excuse not to use construction collaboration technologies. However, some organisations move slowly, and we do still occasionally learn of companies where staff sometimes prefer to work at home because their internet link there is faster than the one they use on-site or in the office.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2005/10/8mbps_broadband/

Oct 17 2005

Wi-Max v 3G, etc

It’s perhaps only to be expected, but some of the major mobile telecoms are sometimes a bit dismissive about Wi-Max. According to Silicon.com, one Nokia executive thinks it is nice technology, but over-hyped; an Intel executive sees Wi-Max peacefully co-existing alongside 3G; and Siemens doubt that VOIP over Wi-Max will seriously threaten existing voice services. With Wi-Max standards still to be agreed, the article says we are unlikely to see Wi-Max laptops until about 2007, while low-end mobiles with Wi-Max are a further 3-4 years away.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2005/10/wimax_v_3g_etc/

Oct 17 2005

Gorillas and minnows?

I occasionally dip into ‘Microscope’ IT magazine. This week’s edition has a piece about Salesforce.com and how its hosted CRM solution could be squeezed by the software "mammoths". The latter (including Oracle, Sage, Microsoft and SAP) are incentivising their resellers with bounties to take SME customers away from Salesforce.com – such a strategy appears to recognise that they cannot compete against Salesforce.com’s direct marketing.

By the end of the article, however, the ‘mammoths’ had been transformed; a CRM reseller described the market: "Salesforce.com is a new entrant and is a minnow in a market of gorillas. It will ultimately fail." As a metaphor, I am not sure this exactly persuades me. I am not sure you often find gorillas in water; even if you did, I don’t think they would have the speed or agility to crush a minnow (and, as we all know, mammoths became extinct thousands of years ago!).

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2005/10/gorillas_and_mi/

Oct 15 2005

Moaning architects? (3)

Since my last post on this topic, I have had an invitation to attend the next meeting of the CICA major architects IT group in early November, along with Duncan Mactear of 4Projects. Should be an interesting opportunity to hear why architects don’t feel construction collaboration technologies are yielding the benefits we often claim for them.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2005/10/moaning_archite-2/

Oct 15 2005

CICA annual convention

No posts yesterday; I was at the CICA annual convention in London. The turnout wasn’t great – around 30 or so, including speakers – but most attendees managed to stay to the very end of the day. This was no mean achievement for an all-day event on a Friday, and a lot of credit must go to the organisers for giving over half of the day to a facilitated workshop run by David Stitt. David managed to keep our interest going by encouraging group and syndicate working, plus brain-storming supported by some graphical software.

Another factor might have been that we didn’t experience ‘slow death by PowerPoint’. Two of the speakers dispensed with PowerPoint altogether. Andrew Bowles of Sheppard Robson spoke well with the aid of just a few notes on cards, while Arup‘s Henrik Kiertzner spoke provocatively and without notes at all  (by contrast, another speaker gave a presentation that only fleetingly resembled that shown in his handout – which exasperated a few delegates, I think).

I was pleased that the event also featured praise for the PIX Protocol (something that will be discussed in the workshops at the forthcoming NCCTP conference in November – I did a quick plug for the event, and my book, just after lunch), and didn’t get hung up on the technology alone – indeed, there was wide recognition that it’s not technology that’s hampering our efforts, but the slowness of effecting change in people and processes.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2005/10/cica_annual_con/

Oct 15 2005

Avanti reality check for extranets (2)

Towards the end of yesterday’s CICA annual convention, I met Mervyn Richards, one of the leading figures on the Avanti project (see 22 September post). He gave me a bit of background to the somewhat negative comment (about extranets and their workflow handling capabilities) made at last month’s CE members convention. Apparently, the comment was not a generalisation, but an anecdote based on use of a particular system (certainly not BIW Information Channel). Mervyn hadn’t been able to challenge the assertion since his own first-hand experience of construction collaboration technologies was now out-of-date (however, Mervyn is now going to come down to BIW’s Woking office to see the latest version of our software).

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2005/10/avanti_reality_/

Oct 13 2005

Irritating marketing email

I received an unsolicited email from AMT3D offering what sounded like an interesting solution which would enable architects and developers to demonstrate to planners, etc, exactly what their new schemes will look like within the existing 3D urban environment. The email tempted me:

A demo of the Leeds pilot project can be obtained via: http://www.amt3d.com/index_files/leeds_3d.htm

However, there was no demo – just a photo of the equipment used, and an email link to request a demo. Why not link to an exciting image or short video giving me some idea of the product’s capabilities?

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2005/10/irritating_mark/

Load more