Email this page to a friend!
AEC Newsletter archive:
Geoffrey Moore Langdon
CADENCE AEC Tech News # 28 (June 20, 2000)
AEC Tech News 6/20/2000
In This Issue
A/E/C Systems and Extranets
A/E/C Highlights
Top Gun
CAD Shootout
***************************************************************************
Capture revenues by tracking 100% of your plots and prints through SmartPLOT and SmartPRINT, by Technesis. Designed to fit your existing workflow, SmartPLOT supports AutoCAD, AutoCAD LT, and MicroStation, and SmartPRINT supports Windows applications. For more information, visit http://www.smartplot.com
***************************************************************************
A/E/C Systems and Extranets
The construction Industry certainly got its wakeup call last week, as virtually all of the booths at A/E/C Systems displayed some sort of internet-based product or service specifically aimed at construction projects online. Every seminar, press conference, CAD company, and even hardware manufacturer, it seems, was focused on yet another online capability.
The buzz in the media was about if and how all these hundreds of construction-oriented extranets can survive. Some of my colleagues feel that we could be down to as few as a half dozen in less than a year or two ... and in fact the acquisition process has already begun. Certainly the case can be made that a construction extranet is based on a weak business model: although the dollars it could POSSIBLY chase are in the trillions (i.e., construction procurement), it is too easy a business to set up (making it easy for competitors to pop up), and it has weak initial appeal to two key groups of users--architects and builders.
Indeed, setting up an extranet is as easy as getting a single computer onto a fast connection with special server software (some of which is available free), and in fact several of the extranets in the grand list of 170 at http://www.extranets.org are exactly that.
With such low barriers to competition and with those trillions of construction dollars out there, this looks like the opportunity of a lifetime to many companies. The way to survive is to be--or at least appear to be--big, solid, and secure, with lots of backup, and to offer enticing services, which is where venture capital comes in, and this was obvious at the show.
A weak link though, is that a huge number of builders (for whom this kind of thing is supposed to be the most useful) simply are not online. I know dozens of builders, contractors, carpenters, and so on who don't even have (or want) computers (unless you want to count what their accountants and secretaries use).
Another weak link pertains to those architects who, while reasonably teched-out and online, are reluctant to put their drawings (a key piece of all this) online, not only for liability reasons, but because in some states doing so would not even be legal. (Some extranets should learn more about construction and licensing laws.)
Another issue is that even when a particular project and team is ideal for an extranet, and a project manager needs to make a choice of where to host his or her multimillion-dollar project, he or she wants to feel secure that that host is not going to stop operations suddenly ten months down the road.
Despite all these negative points and the views of my colleagues and some of the current leaders in this market, who know that many extranets will gobble up others (like the auto industry years ago), I think we will see even more of them, not fewer, which will make a show such as A/E/C Systems even more important in the future.
Essentially, every CADD software developer is, or will, have an extranet (or close partner) that is oriented towards its software. It doesn't take much sleuthing to see that Buzzsaw, Viecom, Bricsnet, and others are really just part of a larger umbrella created for marketing purposes. All these will survive, and more will appear, because their primary purpose and business is not so much the extranet but to support their CADD platform.
Also, each of the key segments in the construction industry--architects, developers, building owners, various types of engineers, builders, interior designers, subcontractors, product manufacturers, and others--has a particular need or spin that sometimes conflicts with some of the others, and entrepreneurs or their professional associations have (or will set up extranets that cater specifically to those needs.
So far, that is over 30 different extranets right there that must "survive." In the AIA alone, some 20 chapters are planning on offering "project hosting," mainly to be of service to their local members. Also, as more of those builders and architects really do get online, many will feel the most secure just hosting their projects themselves, and offering such services to close colleagues. The upshot: Though the various players in construction extranets will change, the handwriting is on the wall for everyone in the construction industry--by next year you wouldn't think about doing a project without one.
A/E/C Highlights
Show highlights and key products in the CADD realm read like a list of the topics already covered in this column over the past few months--EZ, Revit, DataCAD Plus, Cyrax, ArchiFM, VectorWorks Architect. The show gave many designers the chance to see them for themselves, and, interestingly, those same products won CADENCE ShowStopper awards as well as Cadalyst TopTen awards.
Top Gun
Another interesting thing was that, yet again, the CADENCE Top Gun award went to an ArchiCAD user. In the ten-minute drafting test, he managed to get the doors, windows, and dimensions done, whereas the others, two using AutoCAD 2000 and one using ADT2, only managed to get the base walls done.
CAD Shootout
The Designers 3D CAD Shootout project was a three-story conference center next to an alpine ski lodge. Twenty architects on eight teams showed us how they could do the building easily, as well as most of the specific 3D elements (which are now part of the CADD Web Challenge). The interesting drawings are now posted online.
The three newcomers--VersaCAD, FormZ, and ChiefArchitect --surprised many in the audience with their robust abilities. The Arris and VectorWorks Architect teams did amazingly comprehensive work, and the ArchiCAD team showed that even one person can do that building with software like ArchiCAD.
The MicroStation TriForma teams definitely showed how powerful their software is for structural and HVAC engineering. (Much more on this in furture issues.)
Links
A/E/C Sysystems = http://www.aecsystems2000.com
Extranets = http://www.extranets.org
CADENCE = http://www.cadenceweb.com
Cadalyst magazine = http://www.cadalyst.com
Designers 3D CAD Shootout = http://www.architecturalcadd.com/shootout.html
VersaCAD = http://www.versacad.com
FormZ = http://www.formz.com
ChiefArchitect = http://www.chiefarchitect.com
Arris = http://www.arriscad.com
VectorWorks Architect = http://www.vectorworksarchitect.com
ArchiCAD = http://www.graphisoft.com
MicroStation TriForma = http://www.bentley.com
CADD Web Challenge = http://www.architecturalcadd.com/web/challenge.htm
About Geoffrey Moore Langdon, AIA
Prof. Langdon is a registered architect and is the principal of Architectural CADD Consultants, a firm that specializes in helping architectural firms with computing and CADD. He has taught Design, Solar Energy, and Architectural CADD at a number of colleges in the Boston area. He is the author of Architectural CADD: A Resource Guide to Design and Production Software Appropriate for Architects, a guest speaker at many AIA events, and the founder and organizer of the Designers 3D CAD Shootout competition. contact him at aectechnews@architecturalcadd.com, or through his website: http://www.architecturalcadd.com
Home | Current Issue | Back Issues | News | Advertise | Code Archive | Contact | CADShop | Subscribe for Free |
© 1997-2000 Miller Freeman, Inc. All rights Reserved.