Posts Tagged Acquistion
Autodesk Continues to Round Out Portfolio : Acquires Vela Systems
Posted by Jim Foster in BIM, New Technologies on June 8, 2012
Announced today, Autodesk Acquires Vela Systems. If you are developing products within the Building Life Cycle somewhere between and including design to demolition, you are in play. Trimble has been going on an acquisition rampage with its acquisition of Tekla and Sketch Up and Autodesk never one to be a wallflower has just acquired Vela. This is almost 2 years to the date that Vela was unveiled publicly. No idea of their market size but their own press releases state that they are more than ‘twice as big’ as any competitive Field BIM Systems. Regardless, market penetration means little at this point now that the Autodesk marketing/sales system is behind it. How big was Revit in 2006 when they were purchased. A primer of Vela’s Key Features below. Congrats Vela folks, job well done.
Vela Field Management Suite Key Features
The Vela Field Management Suite of Web, Mobile and Reports enables everyone throughout the enterprise to access documents, field activities and reports in the office and in the field. Since its release a year ago, and to further broaden the usability throughout the enterprise, Vela Systems has expanded upon the following features:
- Field BIM® for commissioning and handover that ties BIM to the field for data and document exchange
- Company-level checklist and issue template capabilities to implement and enforce quality and safety programs
- Increased accessibility via the Internet on multiple devices like iPads and Smart Phones
- Better web-based reporting that turns field data into powerful information for managing quality, safety and risk at the project and company level
Holy Frijoles: Trimble acquires SketchUp : Game on to own Digital Buildings
Posted by Jim Foster in BIM, Built Environment, New Technologies on May 2, 2012
As they say on Sport Center, Trimble is en fuego, they acquired Tekla earlier with a well documented, well established player, especially in the structural space who also released their own BIM product with BIMsight, and now they are acquiring Sketch Up. While all the SketchUp users are asking, ‘who the hell is Trimble?’ The Trimble folks, or AEC folks understand. Looks to me that Trimble is vertically integrating and surrounding the ‘digital’ building. Someone said to me somewhere along the line that “Leica is an engineering organization that has to sell stuff. Trimble is a sales organization that happens to sell surveying equipment” Anyway you get the gist. Makes one wonder what Autodesk will counter with now that Trimble has crashed the party. Seems like Google has decided to give up the building data market and concentrate in collecting every piece of information that exists about individuals instead. That’s too bad because it would have been interesting to see the Google Machine start to digest all that building data. However, the fact alone that they had 30 million activations in the past year has to give anyone in this space pause, then again it’s free, but free works for market penetration. And honestly isn’t the end game to get a project into your ecosphere and manage it from design to demolition, from cradle to grave and Trimble is starting to put together a pretty compelling environment. Let’s take a look shall we:
Accubid – Cost Estimating Project Management Software : CAD based or screen take offs (acquired by Trimble August 2010)
HHK – GIS and CAD Surveying Solutions For Germany and Europe. (acquired by Trimble January 2008)
Meridian – Capital Projects and Major Renovation Management Software (acquired by Trimble October 2006)
Plancal -HVAC , Building equipment and Appliance Software (acquired by Trimble January 2012)
QuickPen – Provides Pipe and HVAC Estimating Software Solutions, CAD Detailing Solutions for HVAC and Mechanical Systems (acquired by Trimble March 2009)
Tekla – Building Information Modeling (BIM) Solutions (acquired by Trimble
Trimble Business Center – Allows you to edit, process, and adjust data from all Trimble surveying instruments from your desktop
Trimble Connected Community– Web based project management, let’s just call it the “Cloud” based management, at least they should.
So what’s all this Vertical Integration mean? Well Rockefeller or Carnegie would argue it creates efficiencies in the market place, offering you a better product for less money. However, I am more curious to how Autodesk responds. They could argue that Trimble is not a threat because they “Autodesk” are a 3D company, not just focused on AEC. It reminds me of quote from Bob Rosenberg, former CEO of Dunkin Donuts when asked about Krispy Kreme’s rise. This was at a time when Krispy Kreme was hot and expanding everywhere. CEO Rosenberg responded, “we don’t see them as a competitor.” To which you might say, are you kidding me, “DONUTS”, but he followed with “we’re a coffee company they’re a bakery.” And you know what, he was right, but we’re talking about the ownership of buildings in the digital domain, that’s big.
So we see a hardware company, Trimble, acquiring a lot of software. Would Autodesk start to acquire hardware. Although back in the day one of their product managers told me, “we don’t do hardware.” I expect to see more acquistions down the road. FARO, a publicly traded company at about $1 billion could be interesting. Where are the gaps in the portfolio? What’s next?
Acquistions in the BIM Space: ARC acquires RCMS Group: #BIM
Posted by Jim Foster in Adoption, BIM, economic trends on October 14, 2009
ARC a publicly traded company focused on document and digital management has acquired certain assets of the Atalanta based, RCMS Group. While on the macro level its good to see the markets waking up with acquisitions, etc. but a document management company acquiring a CAD/BIM Production shop. This backs up an earlier post when I spoke of the building as the operating system, and as companies have been creating running inside salesforce, and facebook, we will see a centralized BIM become the hub for a variety of services and value added services, from bidding on construction, to energy anaylsis, etc. and it seems to make a lot of sense that a company that focused on Digital Document Management is getting into the space. I wonder when Iron Mountain makes a play? Additionally, how many BIM production shops are out there and who is creating and maintaining content? With the official announcement by the GSA for the BIM awards, those prime contractors and their subs provides a good who’s who in the US BIM market.
Official ARC Press Release Here:
