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PORTALS AND GATEWAYS 333

Early implementations of B2B in A/E/C are seeing acceptance of new auto-
mated processes for collaboration, project control, and project commerce. A pop-
ular feature is online progress payment. Data is reviewed by approving parties
and sent to owner for payment. However, there is resistance to the automated
bidding and procurement capabilities. This feature has not yet been embraced by
the A/E/C community.

Tool Tip Primavera Systems, Inc., has broken new ground in
the area of B2B services for the A/E/C community with a B2B
system called PrimeContract. It is available by subscription,
with pricing based on the value of the project.

Collaboration Services

What’s in a name? The progeny of the e revolution are available in various forms
and are called by many names. Any B2B capability would appear to be a type of
collaboration service. But there are other products appearing under this moniker
that cover partial B2B or different capabilities. Common capabilities of collabora-
tion tools would include:

• Discussion streams.
• Web forums.
• Document management.
• Document check-out and check-in.
• Version management.

Regardless of the particulars of any so-called collaboration tool, the basic ob-
jective will be to allow widespread access to data, standards, knowledge, com-
mentary, news, alarms, and status. How do you tell which collaboration tool is
right for you? First of all, it should provide customizable windows for each user so
that the user does not have to wander all over the place to access his or her most
common features (or filter out what is not needed). Second, the tool should pos-
sess the processing functionality that is needed to do your job, or provide a strong,
seamless link to such capabilities.

Portals and Gateways

Confused by all these new products and services of the e age? Join the party.
Among these new services are websites that are billed as portals or gateways.