iPad: New App just for construction industry

Today we were interviewed by a local business magazine.  The focus of the interview was our iPad App called Mobile PlanRoom.  It's creating quite a stir.  That isn't surprising given the power of the App, combined with the native functionality of the iPad, together representing the opportunity to eliminate a lot of wasted printing of construction drawings.

Here is how it all works.  Our flagship product is BuilditLive (http://www.builditlive.com/) and BuilditLive is a construction document communication tool.  It goes way beyond an FTP site or do-it-yourself collaboration sites.  It is an easy to use, construction specific tool that we host, meaning there is no software for anyone to install.  General contractors, architects, and/or engineers begin by posting their drawing and other documents to BuilditLive.  They then use our invitation process to 'invite' other project participants, like subcontractors and consultants, to their BuilditLive project.  All the parties to the project can then access and collaborate on documents in one central location.  No more need to email huge zipped files of dozens of files.  As we like to say, 'stop emailing and start to BuilditLive'.

So most of the document management and collaboration takes place at BuilditLive.  Now for those who want to access their documents in the field, they can use any internet browser and go to http://www.builditlive.com/ and access the files from a laptop with a wireless card, or other mobile devices with a browser.  In addition, if you have an iPad, you can use our App called Mobile PlanRoom, to directly access drawing via powerful thumbnail previews that you can rapidly scroll through.  It's much faster than browsing the site.  Very powerful and innovative.  The potential exists here to transform the construction industry away from costly printed drawings.