James, I guess we must disagree. I think that there are a number of distinctions that you need to make in understanding TMBS' business. First, their s/w is generally not used by mega construction companies. I work with two of the largest general contracting companies in the U.S. Neither uses TMBS's products, nor would they for very valid reasons. Most of TMBS' customers are in the home construction industry and are not multi billion dollar enterprises. They are generally medium size and small company's.
As someone pointed out in one of the posts most of the sub-contractors and vendors are FAR, FAR behind in terms of technology. As the CEO of one of the big general contractors explained to me when we first started working together:
"the first thing you need to understand is that the construction industry has not really changed a whole lot since they built the pyramids. We have lots of machines to do the heavy work, but, the process is very similiar today to what it was in the past. The people who run the projects, who run the sub-contractors and all the people who work for them are not very technologically savvy or aware"
In this case it was a HUGE struggle to get a rather simple electronic bill submission system put in place to automate the payment of subcontractors on large projects. The struggle was getting the site management and the sub-contractor management to use the system.
Like everything else, construction will become e-enabled. But, it will be a slow process.
I have worked with another huge general contractor that wanted to put all the specs and drawings for a new project on-line so that subs could bid against the latest versions of these ever changing documents. Getting that going was not very easy, either.
I'm not saying this won't happen. It is, both of these projects eventually went through and into operation. But, its a tough haul. The idea of an e-mart for construction may sound good, but, I think it would take a long, long time to really get going.
Hey, I still own TMBS and I like the direction they are going. I'd love to see MSFT invest in TMBS and help them build a site. I just doubt is going to happen. I hope I'm wrong. |
