October 11, 2008   Primavera Being Acquired by Oracle Oracle, www.oracle.com, Redwood Shores, Calif., announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Primavera Systems, www.primavera.com, Bala Cynwyd, Pa. (More)
Dexter + Chaney for Service Contractors For some contractors, new construction work may be hard to come by. Therefore many in the electrical contracting space are extending their breadth of services to include service work. However... (More)  Email Retention  Money Management  Microsoft Applications  Safety & Security ALL HEADLINES Caterpillar and Trimble form VirtualSite Solutions Earthmoving equipment manufacturer, Caterpillar Inc., www.cat.com, Peoria, Ill., and construction technology provider Trimble, www.trimble.com, Sunnyvale, Calif., announced the creation of a new... (More)				Numerex Acquires Ublip  Keeping It Convenient  Keeping an Eye on the Road ALL OF TODAY'S HEADLINES       Do you use Microsoft Excel as part of your estimating process?       Yes     No     How Hot Is IT? Sixteen technology providers made the cut this year. Another three are on the brink, and even they were a tough call to keep off of the list. Judging... Table of Contents Out of the Dark High risk, little reward. This is an unfortunate yet all too familiar occurrence for today’s subcontracting companies which are constantly forced to... Table of Contents
Come and Get IT Builders remain aggressive when it comes to applying IT (information technology). According to Constructech’s 2008 National Construction Technology Survey, 62% of respondents in this space consider... (More) Lighting Control in the Golden Years With various industry reports expecting 70 million people in the 65 or older age bracket by the year 2030, the market for 50+ housing is rapidly growing. For builders this means a continued area of... (More) Dotting the ‘I’ in BIM One of the hottest topics in the industry today is BIM (building information modeling). Throughout the past few years, almost every CAD (computer-aided design) vendor on the planet with capable... (More) Hard Times Require Tough Talk One of the things I have always admired about the construction industry is its resiliency. While the residential industry continues to experience yet another downturn, many residential builders are... (More) Slowly Coming Together My father was a big fan of the show “The A-Team.” Although I was not a big fan of the show, I would always watch it with him. Mostly I liked it when the lead character John “Hannibal” Smith would... (More) On a Mission I have to give Editor Mike Carrozzo a lot of credit. Many editors talk about listening to their readers, but few really spend as much time talking to them as he does. In fact, Mike has taken his... (More) U.S. Current-Account Deficit Up -  September 22, 2008 The U.S. current-account deficit increased in the second quarter of 2008, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), www.bea.gov, Washington, D.C. The BEA says the deficit for the second quarter was $183.1 billion compared to $175.6 billion in the first quarter. (More) Top Products The first annual Constructech’s Top Products competition highlights some of the best products tailored for the construction and homebuilding markets (More) Vision Awards This award honors companies that have realized the advantages of applying modern technologies to their everyday businesses tailored for construction (More)		Protect the Project The federal government can be one of the most unforgiving of owners when it comes to project budgets. Projects that fall within its jurisdiction are monitored with a scrupulous eye, and those that... (More) Own the Project Portfolio Step into any one of 160 of Crate & Barrel’s, www.crateandbarrel.com, Northbrook, Ill., many locations across the country and you will not see the same design or layout from store to store. As John... (More) Productivity Tools of Tomorrow? It’s the middle of the workday and one of your employees is sitting at his computer inputting his latest entry into a daily blog. Another employee, cellphone in hand, is pushing buttons fast and... (More) What about the Middle Generation? I recently hit the big 3-0 and to me it really wasn’t much more than just another birthday. But my wife, always one to put things into perspective, told me, “This means you’re not necessarily old... (More) Making the Tech Point Today technology is a must have, but there are those of us who want to embrace it and the younger generation who believe they are so much more tech savvy than the older generation. The question today... (More) The Technology Roadmap -  September 15, 2008 Once contractors find a process that works, it can easily stick—and for many this means doing things by hand. For one contractor, however, this means doing takeoffs with a digitizer and software—a... (More) PDF Advancements -  September 25, 2008 The PDF (portable document format) has become a dominant tool during the collaboration process for most companies these days, and construction is no exception. While it is typically the easiest... (More) USGN Podcast Douglass Sperr, CEO of USGN, talks with Peggy Smedley, editorial director of Constructech magazine, about the value of project management technology built on a customizable platform, which allows each company to build their own best practices suited for the construction process, as well as the value of integration in the industry. To hear more podcasts, please click here Mainstream Technology Training for Technology