Live from AEC Systems 2000 in Washington DC

Special @EC Edition

by Ralph Grabowski 

(Reprinted from upFront.eZine, Issue #204, June 7, 2000, www.upfrontezine.com by permission of the author/publisher)

Today the exhibits at the newly invigorated AEC Systems 2000 opened in Washington DC USA. Based on the pre-show press releases and meeting invitations I'd received, the theme seems to be "How can we dot.com you today?" Joe O'Halloran, editor of the British C3 Magazine for CAD/CADM/CAE users, suggests, "Maybe they should call it @EC."

This week's upFront.eZine is a day late so that I can bring you show news direct, from room #923 of the Red Roof Inn, downtown Washington DC, while listening to Emma Shapplin's "Carmine Meo" music CD.

The Keynote Address(es) Times Six

Joel Orr hosted the keynote address on Tuesday morning, if you can call six seven-minute speeches "a keynote." Mr Orr introduced six ceo's of AEC dot.com companies, saying they were all funded on speculation; now, they need to survive on profits. The ceo's represent companies that want to host your design projects on the Web.

How many of these dot.coms will crash? This is a serious question for you, the customer, since these apps tend to be "sticky." You are not going to want to switch your project(s) to another ASP (application service provider).

In order of appearance, here are my notes of what each ceo said. (I notice that the word "objects" - overused just 2 or 3 years ago - is no longer mouthed. Instead, I was more likely to hear the term "intelligent components.")

Bentley: In just one year, we changed from "What are we going to do with the Internet?" to this: 170 dot.coms that serve the CAD and construction market. Either you are online - or off. Bentley see three keys to the successful manipulation of data online: (1) granularity - data is stored at the component level, rather than in files; (2) synchronization - data is kept up to date everywhere; and (3) ubiquity - using standards so that one computer can work with all others. Bentley's answer, naturally, is their Viacom.com ASP software, which they officially launched at this show. http://www.bentley.com 

Revit: First off, Revit announced they are not a dot.com. Next, they announced the Internet revolution is over. Is anyone still deciding whether to use the Internet? But we need to realize that the Internet is simply an enabler, like the telephone. Let's not simply automate old processes; don't use the Internet to collaborate on lines, blocks, and static files. Revit's answer, naturally, is their own collaborative, integrated, parametric building model. Revit was giving away truckloads of their Revit software on CD-ROM, which is free to use for one month. Revit announced they are partnering with the CMD Group and their parametric costing software. http://www.revit.com 

Bricsnet: There are 170 dot.coms trying to make a profit. Bricsnet announced that it has purchased Viscom for their project management software. http://www.bricsnet.com 

Cephren: This company is named after the master builder of the pyramids. There are several reasons why you might not be online yet; these reasons are usually sociological, not technological. (1) You cannot get technical resources to get online with your projects; (2) you don't understand the benefits - or the hype; and (3) you have the fear of disintermediation - you might lose customers to competitors. http://www.cephren.com 

Bidcom: The important thing is to concentrate on customers and service. Bidcom announced it has acquired Cubis for its collaboration software. A free 45-day trial of the software is available from http://www.bidcom.com.  Taking a dig at its competition, Bidcom had a flyer that headlined: "Trade in your old tools, hammer, nails, or Buzzsaw."

Buzzsaw: This year, the questions are the same; it is the answers that are different. "Disruptive technology" (such as the Personal Computer and the PalmPilot) is useful, because they provide solutions customers didn't know they needed. Buzzsaw is looking forward to the day when customers tell vendors that compatibility actually works, such as aecXML (eXtended Markup Language for AEC). http://www.buzzsaw.com 

The question period was limited to a single question: "When will aecXML become useful?" Bentley answered the question: A year ago, aecXML did not exist; it is currently on its way to becoming an official standard; products should be shipping by year's end. Other questions, such as mine ("How many AEC dot.coms will there be in a year's time?"), were promised to be answered at Mr Orr's Web site, http://www.extranet.cc in the next week or so.

Mr Orr says that the entire keynote will be available in video form from http://designarchitect.com in a couple of days. He is forming the Extranet Vendors Association.

The Show

At 10:00 a.m. the exhibition doors swung open, and the crowds surged in. The official photographer was on hand to record the masses - it's always a good photo for next year's brochure.

I had predicted that with so many new companies, there would be lots and lots of "freebees" - giveaways -- and I was correct. By day's end I was laden with pens, mouse pads, T-shirts, paper pads, rubber squeeze toys, and other knick knacks. My kids will be thrilled when I get home. But back to the reason we're in Washington DC this week:

At my 10:30 meeting with Bricsnet, ceo Erik de Keyser showed me the new capabilities of their integrated software for architects - all built on IntelliCAD, ACIS solids, and their Web site. One new feature is the ability to send faxes to your Web-based project management site. Another new feature in their architectural software is "styles," which are not unlike styles in Word: apply a style to an object to set its layer, lineweight, etc. VisualBasic plugin macros define parametric objects. Integrated structural analysis (an option) checks that the steel beams you select are adequate - and is a lot faster than when I did it by hand. Bricsnet was giving away Sony PlayStations, but I wasn't able to talk them into giving me one; I settled for a round mouse pad instead.

At 11:10 I hustled over to Room 39 to take my place as an adjudicator for the Architectural CAD Shootout. I happened to sit next to Kevin Matthews of Artifice. He told me he last month launched (together with well-known writer B.J. Novinski) a weekly Webzine for architects. You can check it out at http://www.archweek.com. 

The drawing competition featured seven CAD packages designing a new conference center for an alpine resort at Aspen CO USA. Teams were given a site plan in DXF/DWG format, some GIFs of elements (such as the front door), and some hand sketches to work from. They had three hours to get as much done as possible. During that time, organizer Geof Langdon continuously circulated among the groups to interview their progress. The results are to be displayed tomorrow. Participating products were Arris, VersaCAD, FormZ, ArchiCAD (last year's winner), MicroStation, ChiefArchitect, and VectorWorks. AutoCAD Architectural Desktop dropped out when the team member was unable to attend.

During the drawing competition, I met with Marc Goldman of Design Variations. You might recall that the company's founder, former Autodesk cto John Lynch, had visited more than a year ago to show his new software. I had wondered what became of it. Marc brought me up to date: the company had changed tactics. Rather than try to compete as Yet Another Architectural CAD Package, DV is now working behind the scenes to create enabling software for others, rather than sell direct to endusers.

The Web browser demo Marc gave me was impressive. An ActiveX plugin provides the display function, while Java routines execute commands, and XML exports the costing data to a central site. He demo'ed designing a kitchen using parametric cabinets (even the surface finish can be changed), although the Varia Builder software is not limited to kitchens, Marc emphasized. The average component is just 20KB. I said the software reminds me of a 3D Visio; he agreed, saying they thought of it being like Lego - building block software. You can try it out at http://www.variabuilder.com 

At 3pm I had a meeting scheduled with Cephren's ceo Robert Matiler, but he was unavailable. Instead, two demo jocks showed me their Web-based software. While the user interface is gorgeous, I found the feature set to be almost identical to that of Viecom, Buzzsaw, and any other Web-based project hosting software to be found at the show. Product differentiation is going to be tough. Cephren says they have monthly releases of software updates.

Between meetings, I cruised the show floor, looking for software that was truly different. One that impressed me was Echive Series from Open Archive Systems, which archives project documents: raster scans and images, office docs, and CAD files. David Wilson showed me how his software can find text in any of these files. The special feature is "SurroundSearch," which finds all text that matches your input, then displays it in context. "Stemming" includes suffices, such as -s, -ing, and -ed. "Fuzzy Search" locates words that match closely, important for OCR text that might not be correctly read. http://openarchive.com.

My AEC Top 10

Within the first 15 minutes of the show opening, CADalyst magazine staffers were busy taping large banners on certain booths: "CADalyst Top Ten." Top ten what, I wondered? I asked the marketing person at one of the lucky booths - she didn't know. "Top ten something, I guess," she replied. "Maybe we're one of the top ten software packages?"

This leads to my Top Ten, which took me considerably longer than 15 minutes to decide on. I spent close to 55 minutes coming up with this list:

10. Most puzzling banner: "CADalyst Top Ten."

9. Booth personnel with the hardest job: Bentley. Their people had to keep one hand in the air, making a V-shape with two fingers (for Viecom) when not otherwise busy. Runner up: husband-and-wife companies being ignored in their small 10'x10' booths.

8. Most impressive booth: SupplyForce with their array of X-shaped steel beams. Runner up: Bentley Systems, with giant video screen and flying saucer ceiling.

7. Most common give-away: pen. Runner up: foam stress squeezer.

6. Best pen give-away: OnBedrock's pen that looks like a chrome bolt and nut. Runner up: Welcomhome.com's house squeeze toy.

5. Most annoying person: pr people who intercept us media in the aisles, asking us to visit their booth "over there," waving vaguely in some direction, not knowing their own booth number, and feeling pleased that they did their job.

4. Best-looking media package: Buzzsaw.

3. Most obsolete technology: the CRT monitor. LCD flat panel monitors were de rigeur. The wider, the better.

2. Most straightforward dot.com: e-skylight.com - a Web-based skylight quoting and design service. One of the few dot.coms who: (1) were different; and (2) whose purpose I could understand.

1. Most noticeable absent vendor: Autodesk.

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