EXTRANET NEWS *
Published Weekly
Editors: Joel Orr, N'omi Orr,
http://www.extranetnews.com
1. INFORMATIVE GRAPHICS: NOT JUST VIEWERS
2. THE LIST
3. TIDBITS
4. QUOTE OF THE WEEK
1. INFORMATIVE GRAPHICS: NOT JUST VIEWERS
Joel Orr
Informative Graphics has made a name for itself in the
viewer market with its Myriad product: Java-based full-feature viewing and
redlining of hundreds of document, image, and CAD file formats. You don't have
to own the application; you can use Myriad to open a file and
"redline" it.
Viewers are collaborative utilities - very important in
the world of engineering and architectural extranets, but not what you would
call "main players." Informative Graphics has grown to be 75 people
strong through its success in the viewer market.
18 months ago, the company acquired a small firm for its
technology, which enabled Informative Graphics to enhance its products.
"But then it dawned on us that we had actually acquired a powerful
collaborative technology," said Gary Heath, CEO. "This technology,
now packaged as Net-It Central and Brava! Central, has put us in a well-defined
niche in the Web-based collaboration space."
Net-It Central works like this: You designate a directory
or a drive as the Net-It Central repository. Any document stored there is
immediately converted to a Web-friendly format and published to a portal - an
intranet or extranet, depending on how the user defines it.
"Without Net-It Central, a user must have a document
converted to PDF or html, then have someone integrate
it into a portal. There are usually a couple of people involved, and time,"
says
Users need no knowledge of html, no content management
system skills - "In fact," says
The format to which documents are converted is called Jdocs. It is part of the package of proprietary technology
Informative Graphics acquired. How does it differ from Adobe's PDF, we wanted
to know. "It's not as good for printing graphic designs - less control
over color, and related issues. But it shines in the following regard: When you
convert a large document - say, 100 pages - to Jdocs
format, it is served over the Web a page at a time. In contrast, 100-page PDF
must be entirely downloaded first, before you can view it," said Heath.
Net-It can also publish html files from documents,
complete with links. The process works on a timer - the designated directory is
scanned periodically by Net-It Central, and any new document is converted and
posted to the portal.
"One large hotel chain used to distribute a whole new
policy manual to its many locations internationally three times a year. Now
they use Net-It Central, and claim they are saving $250,000 per year,"
Gary reports. "And there is much less work involved, because individual
pages and sections can be updated, without reprinting the whole
multi-hundred-page document."
There are now more than 1500 users of Net-It Central.
Another product, Brava! Central, is a superset of Net-It
Central - it adds similar functionality for CAD files.
How is it priced? By number of documents processed and
number of Web sites - the number of users is unlimited.
* Net-It Central: $1995 for the Starter edition, to
$19,995 for the Professional edition (maintenance is 20% per annum).
* Brava! Central : $5995 for the
starter edition, to $32,995 for the Professional edition (maintenance is 20% additional)
The high end gives you unlimited documents, and up to 50
Web sites. Go to http://www.infograph.com and contact the company for more
details.
Informative has also announced ProjectWeb, a low-end document-management and -sharing system. "It's a very simple product, for small to medium-size companies, who need a bit more that what the Windows file system can offer, but much less than, say, Documentum.
“And by the way, our free drawing-sharing site,
DrawingRoom.net, continues to be available to the public,"
says
Our take: I've realized, over and over, that the bulk of
the market is far behind the leading edge. (Geoffrey Moore wrote a book about
this: "Crossing the Chasm.") Informative Graphics is not only
surviving, but growing, because its products address basic needs simply. The
collaborative-solutions space needs more companies like this one.
2. THE LIST
Total companies: 254 (see who's on The List at
http://www.extranetnews.com)
3. TIDBITS
* Missed the Bentley International User Conference? Come
to Virtual BIUC, http://www.virtualbiuc.com.
* The lively and literate - if overly alliterative (;-))
- Laiserin Letter is now available from star
architect and pundit Jerry Laiserin. Go to
http://www.laiserin.com/ to enjoy it and sign up for it. Highly
recommended.
* Read David Coleman's great article, "Good Pilot
Projects Gone Bad: Complexity and Project Management," at
http://www.collaborate.com/publication/newsletter/publications_newsletter_june02.html
* Go to http://www.enr.com/new/indcal.asp for ENR's construction-industry calendar.
* http://www.cadwire.net is the place to go to find out
what is going on in the world of engineering and architecture automation. Go to
CADwire for up-to-the-minute nuggets of
well-organized news, press releases, and commentary from Joel and his
associates in Cyon Research Corporation.
*
4. QUOTE OF THE WEEK
The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to
overlook.
-- William James