Product category:
Business Software
News Release from: Oasys
Edited by the Buildingtalk Editorial
Team on 18 December 2003
Director Predicts The End Of The Project
Extranet
Alec Milton, an associate director of consulting engineer Arup, predicted that project extranets and document management, as the construction industry understands them, would be dead within a few year
Alec Milton, an associate director of consulting engineer Arup, has been made a director of Oasys Limited, the software house of Arup Milton gave his views at Project Extranets IV at the IEE Savoy Place on December 3, 2003
This article was originally published on Buildingtalk on 26 Nov 2003 at 8.00am (UK)
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In it he predicted that project extranets and document management, as the construction industry understands them, would be dead within a few years.
Milton, 39, will continue to hold his position as associate director of Arup while fulfilling his role on the board of Oasys.
He joins John Miles, chairman - corporate services division, and Mike Somers, deputy chairman, on the board.
"My role at Oasys will continue to be very much hands-on, totally involved in the day-to-day business of the company," explained Milton.
In his presentation Milton argued that, in order to remain useful, extranets have to be secure, reliable, acceptably priced, future proof and easy to use.
"Peer-to-peer systems provide a complementary solution and meet all of the core requirements that could be asked of an extranet," he said.
"Furthermore, Longhorn, Microsoft's forthcoming database driven operating system is likely to provide meta-data management, version control and audit trails.
This could even reduce the need for document management systems.
The systems that will survive are those that work direct with the operating system to organise project material - like Columbus, Oasys' own system," Milton suggested.
"Finally.Net blurs the boundaries between applications, file systems and the Internet, thus further reducing the usefulness of project extranets based on central repositories.
Despite all of this, there is no question that project extranets will continue to be used for the moment - because they are useful," concluded Milton.
To obtain a full transcript of the speech given at Project Extranet IV, contact oasys@arup.com.
Columbus, Oasys Limited's own document management system can be downloaded from www.oasys-software.com.
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