If you want to explain to someone what AEC extranets are really about, surf to http://www.biwtech.com and run the tour on the "About" page. It is as crisp, clear, and powerful a presentation of the subject as I have seen-and a beautiful piece of Flash. On my last day in London last December, I visited BIW Technologies, the owner of that Web site. Their product, the Information Channel, evolved from a 1994 UK government research program that explored the power of collaboration through portals. The firm's Deputy Chairman is Sir Michael Latham, who wrote a report to the government a few years ago called "Constructing the Team."

Said Colin Smith, CEO: "We launched Building Information Warehouse-now BIW Technologies-in the beginning of 2000. The first project for Information Channel was for Sainesbury (a large UK retail chain). We helped them by demonstrably reducing their cost to deliver a store, and allowing them to open sooner than scheduled."

"In fact," he continued, "we cornered the market in retail-Marks and Spencer, Asda (Hallmark), and others have followed suit." The company is growing rapidly, selling (in ASP subscriptions) 2100 seats in year one, 6300 in year two, and 1700 more between October and December of last year-a total of well over 10,000 seats.

Revenues are more than keeping pace. In the last six months of the fiscal year that ended in October of 2001, the company increased its revenue at the rate of £500,000/month. "Right now, we have many supermarket projects, said Smith.

"Our fees are based on project value; we are a premium service. If small jobs come along, we pass them to competitors," said Smith. We're now getting all the business we can handle-about 3500 projects of >£2 million. We are getting about 15 new orders a month. We only want to deal with customers who value our extra value."

The company employs 43 people (mostly developers) and some contractors. Most sales are to owners, many of whom require their contractors to use BIW's Information Channel.

Professional firms, such as construction managers and quantity surveyors, have become 85% of BIW's sales channel.

"We've invented a new role called 'Project Information Coordinator,'" said Smith. "We don't have to pay commissions to the professional firms who resell our products, because they do well for themselves as PICs (project information coordinators)."

The Information Channel has a text-based user interface, in order to maximize responsiveness under the largely-dial-up low-bandwidth connections prevalent in the UK. XML is used to facilitate language conversions. Currently, English and Spanish are offered.

I was impressed with the rich array of mature features in the service, from the high-functionality home-grown viewer ("We needed more than the commercial products had"), to the selectable-print-area feature, to the Web-cam audit trails. To my surprise, BIW eschews email notification. "People must make a conscious effort to sign onto the system and view the headlines. E-mail is used only for exceptions," said Smith.

Our take: A well-managed company with a fine product. One to watch.