Keywords: information management, construction portals, Internet portals, project extranets, information repositories.

The last few years have seen an explosion in the number of organisations offering so-called Internet based "construction portals" and more recently some have suffered as the dot-com bubble burst. Some of these web-based services have been developed using significant amounts of venture capital, and all make dramatic claims about improvements that they can make to the construction process.

It is perhaps initially surprising that new entrants have sprung up to provide this service, rather than existing software developers or construction organisations filling a gap in the market, although further analysis may conclude that a "neutral" organisation has a significant advantage in relation to acceptability. Either way they clearly believe they have found an un-exploited niche in the market. There are direct parallels with the early development of CAD and other engineering software, much of which was initiated within specialist units of the large consultants, but eventually these teams became completely independent software houses.

One of the main advantages of Internet portals is the standardised approach to the management of construction information. It is therefore potentially a contradiction to attempt to provide standardisation via a vast array of different offerings, although paradoxically each must provide a different service to suggest differentiation and thus establish a need for their particular variant. Conventional managerial wisdom would suggest that there will be a significant shakeout amongst these companies, but if standardisation is the true goal, then it follows that there may only be a single organisation (or a very small number) offering the services. Again this has parallels with the product development and market acceptance of word processors and other software products that, despite varying functionality, offer the most significant benefits from standardisation.

The market advantage of a standardised system offers tremendous opportunities for the winners, but also presents significant problems in relation to the dominance of a small number of companies. These organisations have the potential to become dominant players operating at the heart of the construction process, wielding significant influence and shifting the centre of power within the whole industry. This could explain why the venture capitalists have been prepared to fund what on the surface could be seen as highly risky speculative ventures with no proven demand for the proposed service.

This paper explores the development of construction portals and briefly comments on their functionality. It will then present an analysis of the potential implications of these organisations on the various parts of the construction industry.

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