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Oracle's Fragmented Construction Technology Empire
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Join Jason and Carlos in this in-studio episode of The Offsite Podcast as they explore three hot topics in construction technology:
🏗️ Data Centre Construction Trends: Is Microsoft's recent cancellation of select data centre projects a sign of market slowdown, or just a blip in an industry experiencing explosive growth? The hosts dive into surprising statistics about global data centre construction and what's driving this massive infrastructure boom.
🧩 Oracle's Construction Tech Strategy: What's happening with Oracle's collection of construction software products, such as Primavera P6 and Aconex? Jason and Carlos debate whether Oracle has a cohesive strategy in the construction tech space as competitors like Procore and Autodesk continue to evolve their unified platforms.
💻 The ConTech Vaporware Question: The hosts tackle a provocative LinkedIn post claiming that most construction technology solutions are overrated. They explore the challenges of building truly valuable construction software and the potential impact of new AI development tools on the industry.
Key Timestamps:
00:00 - Introduction & Random Construction News
03:43 - Data Centre Construction Market
10:41 - Oracle's Position in Construction Tech
22:42 - ConTech Value Proposition Debate
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Transcript
Oracle's Construction Software Strategy
00:00:00
Speaker
so They built a bunch of modules on top of it and and made it very complex. So that it's like they have, they've kind of had a team in AconX that are like, we're going to build the everything construction platform. They built cost modules and other modules. And then they had a team inside of the Primavera suite be like, we're going to build the everything and they've got cost modules. and So it's like no one knows. There's no unified product strategy. there There's these teams that are like building somewhat competing, but also shit.
00:00:25
Speaker
yeah Yeah. Things. but A company that had ah the valuation was nuts compared to the revenue. Yeah. I think it was 1.4 billion on 25 million revenue. On Aconex. Yeah. Yeah. Which means either they were banking on growth, which didn't happen. Yeah.
00:00:38
Speaker
Or they're doing it for the data. yeah is well I can't think of a third valid way of spending a billion pounds. yep So I'm thinking it's all about the data and they must just want to collect data. They don't care about awesome product market fit. They bought that thing like 10, 15 years ago. They've been collecting data. well like At some point you have to do something with the data yeah that makes it valuable to collect.
00:01:00
Speaker
It's the long strategy. We're playing the long game. Imagine the pitch in 15 years.
Sensational News in Architecture
00:01:07
Speaker
yeah
00:01:14
Speaker
Welcome back to the Offsite Podcast. I'm Jason Lansini, joined once again by Carlos Cavallo in office in London, in person. feels real. It is real.
00:01:25
Speaker
It feels a lot more real than, ah I don't know if you've seen the news, but there is ah plans for a site skyscraper to be hung from an asteroid. So it will hover above New York,
00:01:39
Speaker
but between New York and a city in the Southern Hemisphere and effectively move up and down, hanging down. When you say news, you mean this was that like, the anything classifies as news these days.
00:01:51
Speaker
It's in the New York Times, the Telegraph, the Daily Mail, and CNN. Even Forbes wrote about it. It's from a legitimate architect claiming that it can be done.
00:02:02
Speaker
Get at it. hang but The asteroid's standing still? Yeah, check this out. Hold on. Well, while you send it to me, let me tell you what we're going to cover today.
Data Center Construction Trends
00:02:09
Speaker
I'll just share that. So in addition to the... We're just going scrap the whole agenda and talk about this, the hanging skyscraper. Logistically, what are the problems?
00:02:20
Speaker
But in addition to that, we're going to do the obligatory talk about how Microsoft are going to stop building data centers or are they? And then is the whole data center boom? ah over or ah before it started.
00:02:31
Speaker
Then we are going to dive into a really interesting topic. um The other week we talked about Procore strategy, the product suite, what they might be doing going forward, competing with, say, an Autodesk. ah The name that everyone leaves out of all these conversations is Oracle and what the heck they're doing so we're going to talk about oracle uh and then finally we're gonna dive into a somewhat spicy post on linkedin calling most of contact vaporware and uh and see we think about that but before that we'll just take a quicker side and look at this asteroid hanging from the sky
00:03:03
Speaker
It's genius. You don't have to pay any land value. and the architect A New York City architect for architect firm plans to construct a massive hanging skyscraper tethered to an asteroid. People just say anything these days, right? Clicks. Clicks are worth more than.
00:03:17
Speaker
But it's not even. a picture Is there a picture of the thing or is it just we've said this thing? I just shared the screen. ChatGPT is getting real good at image generation, right? I think that's the problem, right? It's so easy to make stupid images. And when they say prominent architecture firm, like, any have you looked at this company on LinkedIn? There's like three employees that started yesterday. Don't let the tooth get in the way of a good story.
00:03:41
Speaker
Okay, cool. Well, shall we get back on the topic? If we have to, yeah. Yeah, okay, fine. I think we talked about it on air, but maybe not. There was a ah forecast that came out a number of weeks ago that talked about the number of data centers under construction breaching 4,000. It was like 4,750 data centers being built around the world, which that took me totally by surprise and ah had no idea that that it was at that scale.
00:04:12
Speaker
This is a market that has been growing and growing and growing. I think in the last quarter, it grew 25%, the demand for data center construction, um which ah is massive, um you know, if that compounds over time.
00:04:28
Speaker
And the there's a whole marketplace of um construction companies, developers, finances, engineer ah designers. We talked about the WSP partnership with Microsoft.
00:04:43
Speaker
ah few weeks ago built around this massive growing space and demand and the market got it's a little bit of a wobble in the last few weeks where there were rumors that microsoft was delaying or shelving plans for different data center projects around the world and recently has been officially validated that is it in is indeed pulling back some of its planned projects So I guess the question that we're going to speculate on that I think there's ah entire world of people trying to work out at the moment is, is this pulling back on stuff because they found better sites um or is it pulling back on stuff because ah maybe the potential revenue or the application for things isn't quite as hot as they were originally forecast?
Oracle's Product Cohesion Challenges
00:05:35
Speaker
It's a difficult one to answer. because of the, I guess, the lack of information online. But if we cut down some of the numbers, so there's 4,750 data centers being constructed. 60% of those are the big four software houses for cloud organizations.
00:05:53
Speaker
But half of them are in America. So we've got 2,000 data centers being built in America right now. If you take that proportion and you tie that to news of one, two, three, four data centers being canceled, it's actually quite an insignificant in terms of the volume that's actually going on.
00:06:08
Speaker
But I think it hits the news quite hard because everyone is so unaware of how many are actually under construction at the moment. yeahp um So I'm not as sure it's a gauge of a slowing market.
00:06:20
Speaker
Very much looks like it's growing. um But some of these things are hitting the news. um And even in the UK right now, like last week, another two and a half billion pound biggest data center in Europe has been announced and there the ball seems to keep rolling.
00:06:33
Speaker
My gut feel is Microsoft, the news on those data centers being canceled is hitting the news because it's someone somewhere thinking it's something that we read and clicked. But in the grand scheme of things, a few data centers being canceled in thousands. yeah It doesn't seem like a big dent in any plans. Yeah, it's it's unclear whether it's a Microsoft problem or it's a global demand for data center problem. Because I guess behind the scenes here, a couple of weeks ago, ah company went public called CoreWeave, who are effectively a data center ah developer who effectively take on the capital cost of building or fitting out a data center and sign multi-year leases with
00:07:11
Speaker
the likes of Microsoft. Microsoft is one of the biggest customers. And this demand is suspected to be driven by the fact that Microsoft has an obligation to provide compute for OpenAI and OpenAI is scaling so fast that they need to build it for them.
00:07:25
Speaker
So they can't build it fast enough, so they're getting CoreWave to build it. And that's where the demand is. It's like a derivative of demand. The thing that happened a number of months ago was that OpenAI partnered with that, um what was called scott Stargate? So it was a combination of SoftBank and Oracle um to build 500 billion or something worth of data centers in the US.
00:07:49
Speaker
And so it's almost like our OpenAI um might be going elsewhere for their data center needs other than Microsoft. So it could be that Microsoft was trying to forecast what the hell demand they would need from OpenAI,
00:08:04
Speaker
trying to aggressively acquire sites and the ability to build data centers and now there's other people that can give that demand open RSF and they might not need all of it. But yeah, the news reports that...
00:08:16
Speaker
um that mark that they're walking away from some data centers. There's an example of a data center in um ah Jakarta that they paused out like midway through construction.
00:08:28
Speaker
There's a bunch of other sites where they're reporting that they are kind of slow rolling. So they kind of got to deal signing stage and then of kind of fluffed along for a bit. I'd imagine the input to decisions of it from the Microsoft side is very dependent on like some forecast growth chart from say OpenAI.
00:08:46
Speaker
Yep. So there's a lot of moving parts. So it wouldn't surprise me that they over forecast in some areas and under forecast in others and need change. makes a roundabout. um um yeah The market of small ah nuclear reactors has also gone crazy. There's hundreds being planned right now ye to so meet the energy demands. So that's something that you put in your backyard.
00:09:09
Speaker
yeah Depends how much they pay me. um Yeah, there's there's there's a huge amount of those ongoing at the moment. But then also just looking, i tried to look into the contractors involved in these because we obviously catch the news of large data center being won by a contractor.
00:09:25
Speaker
Yep. And it feels like big news at the time. But when we think about the 2000 being built in America, someone's building them all. So um according to some very loose research, ah by an a affirm by an aforementioned service. Yeah. yeah It claims there's ah DPR construction in America have 300 planned data centers to build.
00:09:46
Speaker
Turner have 250. And sorry, DPRs seems to be aligned with Microsoft and Meta, Turner, Google, and Tesla. Yeah. They seem to be aligning with these partners. An organization called McCarthy doing a lot for Apple and Meta. But then It claims Balfour BT have 180 planned data centers um at the moment. So, um and with MACE with another hundred.
00:10:08
Speaker
So whilst those numbers seem a bit wild, you would expect big news if Balfour BT have 180 data centers, but there are 4,000 being built and people are building them. So there's got to be some big players involved.
Oracle's Strategic Direction in Construction Software
00:10:21
Speaker
um But maybe a lot of them aren't public knowledge or maybe these stats completely wrong. Yeah, not to dwell on the topic. It's a and a lot of an area where a lot of jobs and a lot of investment is hinging on a lot of hard to forecast numbers.
00:10:37
Speaker
and So volatility should be expected. Yeah. Right. Let's dive into the meat of the conversation. ah Yeah, two weeks ago, we talked through range of Procore's announcements from the 2024 Groundbreak event.
00:10:51
Speaker
And that was a great way to think about what is the strategy of a giant construction management platform company like Procore and maybe contrasting how that differentiates them from other competitors in the space. We didn't actually talk very much about one of the biggest players in the space um being Oracle.
00:11:13
Speaker
and what their strategy may or may not be why do you think we didn't talk about oracle we obviously we're inherently focused on tools for teams delivering jobs yep oracle have p6 has been there forever yep used by a few but almost every major scheme yep and they've got tools like aconex um boring old document management it's widely used but it's not exactly front and center on this is how we deliver a scheme.
00:11:40
Speaker
It does something very well. like guess a point solution, gathering a lots of data. From an Oracle point of view, they don't really build tools for teams to deliver jobs. They're probably not everyday thinking about hitting product product market fit for tools actually in the field.
00:11:57
Speaker
It feels like it's a data collection exercise and really they're putting all their money into the analytics, the the ecosystem of data, So it feels like it's a tool for like AI auditors and PMO offices rather than... so push back on that bit then.
00:12:14
Speaker
So if you think about the tools that um that would be... Or the elements or workflows in a construction project. Let's focus on the construction phase because Oracle doesn't have a lot in the design phase.
00:12:25
Speaker
um But let's focus on the construction phase. What are the things you need to do? Well, there's probably like a cost management payment workflow piece where Oracle has a connected cost um product, then they have a texture or payment management product, which was the thing that we talked about that had the legal dispute with Procore about copying.
00:12:49
Speaker
Then you obviously need something about schedule. And so obviously, pretty six is the, let's say the de facto for major schemes. And then they've got this Oracle, probably very cloud product. And then they've got kind of like a lean task management thing. they've got a bunch of products in that space.
00:13:05
Speaker
What else is important on delivering a project where you've got people need the latest versions of the documents that they're going to build from and you need to issue them to people and the fact that they get them and update them, then that means like a common data environment is probably one of the more core things you need, which AconX historically has been the de facto as well.
00:13:25
Speaker
then you probably need like a set of safety tools, OH&S safety tools, people, you know, people resource management type tools. I guess in the, if you were to build a suite of the functionality, if you look at like the set of tools that like a Procore and Autodesk have or have been building or are building,
00:13:43
Speaker
Oracle's had at one point the winner in ah number of those categories and it's got some gaping holes and those products don't feel like they've moved at all ever.
00:13:53
Speaker
So do they care at all about competing in this construction management unified platform space or are they happy just to collect the income until these products get superseded?
00:14:05
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think they care too much for the holes. Um... They have to do enough to stay relevant and to keep being used. But I think everything is around collection of data. they never but then they're not They haven't got the same footprint on a project as an Autodesk or a Procore.
00:14:19
Speaker
But if you went back five years but before Autodesk Construction Cloud was unified and that was a collection of messy tools in a very similar way to Autodesk's one right now is, and Procore was a smaller footprint.
00:14:31
Speaker
You know, you look at Bentley's set of tools, that's a messy set of things as well. Hexagon is a messy set of different things. So they probably, like, you could probably make a case that five, ten years ago, the the default was a kind of messy collection of tools owned by some holding company.
00:14:48
Speaker
Procore and Autodesk are breaking... into this like unified platform. The others are either slow at doing so or they don't care for doing it. And if you look at like Oracle set of tools, they've got Primavera P6, Primavera Cloud, Primavera Lean, Aconex, Aconex Field, Aconex Model Coordination, Aconex Connected Cost, Texture Payment Management, Connected Intelligence Cloud, Smart Construction Platform, Portfolio Management.
00:15:16
Speaker
They've got collection of these things. So Should they not be building one platform? We ever look at a lot of those apps. So we think about like um like on so like daily coordination, safety, permits, a lot of the day-to-day running of projects.
00:15:31
Speaker
We look at like their planning tool. If we look at some of these tools, they've gone very surface. And either they don't understand their customers or care for their customers and what they think. ye or they're doing just enough to actually be sort of used or considered, which reinforces the use of the tools that sit above, which are the classic original AirConnects, original P6 or OPC.
00:15:53
Speaker
There's a massive lack of investment or willingness to nail a product, yeahp which you would assume is not on purpose. Sorry, it's not by accident with a company that big with a foothold in construction.
00:16:05
Speaker
Yeah. So why would you purposely not make a tool great to compete in a market? Well, you could say it's um it it's not on purpose because at the same time they're contributing to a $500 billion dollars investment in data centers. It could just be that the business cares a lot more about other things, NetSuite and all their other products.
00:16:24
Speaker
The difference between Oracle and Procore, who's 100% in this space, Budodesk, who are kind of like in construction, but also design. But it's not like they've got a million other things that they care about.
00:16:37
Speaker
Whereas Oracle's big business is not this construction marketplace. So it could be that they just don't care about it. Yeah. I mean, it it must be such a fragmented business, but even the the construction engineering division, which isn't a small chunk of the business, there seems to be this theme of like they either buy a great tool, but they don't really build great tools it it feels like a lack of understanding or care for the end users but then they did go this big investment of building primavera cloud and primavera lean it's like it's it's hard to work out what the strategy is yeah yeah was the strategy is not clear let's flip it if you if you were at oracle what what but would you be doing
00:17:13
Speaker
They've got a strong set of tools for gathering data. So just take P6 and Aconex. yeah A lot of information there. yeah And ah we look at investment in AI and Stargate and everything else. Are they going to go all in on AI to try and revolutionize how construction projects are actually built?
00:17:29
Speaker
rather than just build tools to like point solutions in a suite to manage day-to-day jobs and and site activity. Yeah. Yeah. To double down on data collection to really push into the AI space, I think is a relevant strategy over let's get everyone in construction using our tool to deliver projects. Yeah.
00:17:49
Speaker
Yeah. because even akonex so akonex since they bought it hasn't actually grown really yep so they must have bought it either they've fucked up thinking they'd get well they've built they've built a bunch of modules on top of it and and made it very comfortable so that it's like they have they've kind of had a team in akonex that are like we're going to build the everything construction platform they built cost modules and other modules and then they had a team inside of the primavera suite be like we're going to build the everything and they've got cost modules and So it's like, no one knows. There's no unified product strategy. there There's these teams that are like building somewhat competing, but also shit.
00:18:24
Speaker
Yeah. yeah things But a company that had, ah the valuation was nuts compared to the revenue. Yeah. I think it was 1.4 billion on 25 million revenue. On Aconex. Yeah. yeah Which means either they were banking on growth, which didn't happen, or they're doing it for the data.
00:18:39
Speaker
yeah was but I can't think of a third valid way of spending a billion pounds. yep So I'm thinking it's all about the data and they must just want to collect data. They don't care about awesome product market fit. They bought that thing like 10, 15 years ago. They've been collecting data. well like At some point you have to do something with the data yeah that makes it valuable to collect.
00:18:59
Speaker
the long strategy. We're playing the long game. Yeah. Imagine the pitch in 15 years. Yeah. If you want know what I would do, I could ask myself the question. Yeah, go.
00:19:11
Speaker
First, I'd decide if I care about the business or not. Either I want to win AEC or I don't. The industry. The AEC industry. Either I care about that. Yeah, not the Oracle business, but that division that's trying to be an AEC.
00:19:24
Speaker
Yeah. Either I want to win it or I don't because there's no real benefit in coming third or fourth. in this space and if I did decide that I wanted to win it I would be everywhere I would say I would be trying to be in the seed and series A rounds of like AI companies like t Trunk Tools or Document Crunch I'd be trying to invest in those companies to get insight there because at some point I want to buy them and I want to buy them before Procore or someone else does ye i would be thinking about the holes I would be trying to build a unified product suite that isn't Aconex or Primavira it'd be
00:19:58
Speaker
The Oracle enough Construction Cloud. yeah yeah And I would be thinking about the pieces that that needs to contain. And I'm clearly missing health and safety, a bunch of field log workflow, basically forms and workflows.
00:20:13
Speaker
I'd be buying like a site mate, something like that. yep Something that captures that workflow in a way that has a decent user experience, not like the the rest of my current product suite.
00:20:24
Speaker
Yeah. So I'd be, I'd basically just identifying all of the holes in this unified construction suite. That's going to get me to a spot. That's got all of the pieces of a pro core or a full suite tackle construction.
Oracle's Potential Exit from the Market
00:20:37
Speaker
Yeah. hundred percent in And I would be investing in every company that I can, that's in the space for insight and buying them early, not letting them get to a spot where the others are interested. I'd buy them early.
00:20:49
Speaker
I'd let them run and then I'd integrate them. Um, And yeah, because at some point, it's got to be you've got to have this suite of tools. You've got to have a good user experience. And you need to be on the cutting edge of the next paradigm shift, which is going to be how AI integrates into all these things.
00:21:08
Speaker
And I'd be doing something about P6.
00:21:12
Speaker
He'll upset a few people. Yeah. I mean, they're trying. Are they? ah there is There's a cloud version that no one wants to use yet. Oh, yeah, in the PC. two But I've not seen them be active in any acquisition yeah at all.
00:21:26
Speaker
Yeah, I definitely get the sense they're not interested in the business. Yeah, it's a but it's a it's a big cash cow for them. They'll ride the wave as long as they can. Yeah, but not if it's going to get eaten and taken away because these other products, like...
00:21:42
Speaker
Autodesk Construction Cloud and Procore, they see that the last things that people are holding on to are like good CDE, like a good document management, common data environment. yeah And they're not standing still. They're building it. Like we've spoken to the teams. We know they're building it.
00:21:57
Speaker
And so it's a cash cow until it's not. Yeah, yeah. And then it's goingnna it's going to take ages to turn this ship. so they need to be doing it now.
Critique of Construction Software Industry
00:22:06
Speaker
Otherwise, they're going to wake up one morning and have their lunch eaten for them.
00:22:11
Speaker
So my guess is they don't care. Yeah. Yeah. Or they're doing things very under the radar. Yeah. Yeah. but or Or doing things in like, yeah, just can't to like can't organize a piss up in a brewery.
00:22:25
Speaker
Yeah, pretty much. Cool. ah Yeah, it's interesting to see either because like this space is going to change rapidly. Something has to change soon, otherwise. Really, really, really, really soon because this space is ah is changing very quickly. And they if they're not started now, it's too late.
00:22:42
Speaker
Yep. Topic three, we like the idea of picking something that we've seen on LinkedIn and using that as a jumping off point. So there was a quite, I don't know, soapbox spicy post that we saw recently claiming that most contact solutions are overrated. would say, would go as far to say as it was calling a bunch of it vaporware and that hurts the rest of the space and it hurts the industry, et cetera. So let me let me kind of summarize a bit of the the content here.
00:23:10
Speaker
So it goes to say that most so-called context solutions are overrated. The industry is flooded with mediocre point solutions that fail to deliver real value to customers. and It's one of the main reasons context remains one of the least ah funded SaaS verticals, despite being one of the largest industries on the planet.
00:23:27
Speaker
as It drives the customers to be tired, users are tired, app fatigue is real. It makes the claim that most construction customers aren't using these tools, um for the reasons they're being sold and are often still on free trials online a year to two years later.
00:23:43
Speaker
What do you think ah is going on here? Maybe start with the definition. what do you think he means by overrated? Shall I shout out the author author of the post or or is that too much of a call out?
00:23:54
Speaker
ah Yeah, i think I think it's fine. All right. Ricky Sevta is the CEO at Deep Space, which a construction management SaaS tool inside the industry talking about the industry. So yeah, what do you mean think he means by overrated?
00:24:09
Speaker
I love one of these rants on LinkedIn. He's pointing to a space that we've previously discussed, which is um imagine you're on a construction project and we know how busy you are on those projects. yep And you're constantly being bombarded with, here's the game changing tool that's going to sort your life out, yeah give you your time back and generate more cash or profit for the business. yep So there's always going to be fatigue because it's the biggest the biggest or one of the biggest industries in the world.
00:24:35
Speaker
Everyone wants to tackle it because of the size of it. Loads of these tools will be overrated, as he says. Everyone claims to be a silver bullet, but we know there aren't silver bullets. Like marketing does a marketing job.
00:24:48
Speaker
um They're always going to overhype and overpromise on the value of what something actually delivers. So I think he's got a point. and I wonder what's driving the ah the post itself. Cause it feels a bit ranty and probably a bit of a knee jerk from a conversation or some sort of challenge. Maybe.
00:25:06
Speaker
I think I agree with some of the sentiment of what he's saying, which is there are lots of average tools that are being overhyped. think that bit he may makes a comment of like, yeah, I agree. This doesn't feel like miles away from some stuff that we've said before on the, uh,
00:25:20
Speaker
in in the podcast or or maybe even had our own version of a rant on linkedin he makes the claim that like these uh customers are running free trials for one and a half years uh in many cases yeah Do you buy that?
00:25:36
Speaker
The only situation I can imagine people doing that is when you first release like a beta version of a tool yeah and you do give it away for free you're burning investor cash. yep I don't think there's many tools that are like reasonably well-established giving free tools for that long, unless it's like a new product in a suite of products.
00:25:54
Speaker
So I'm not sure about that, but maybe... so Yeah, you think he's referring to very, very early, like first pilots. Yeah, like you're our first project. Have it for free so we can get feedback. Yeah. we dont ah But it doesn't feel like that's a big issue. Like if it's just the people that are just trying to get started.
00:26:11
Speaker
Losing out to a new tool in the market. Yeah. the do Why do you think that, well, if we buy the argument that there is all these tools that are overrated, do you think that there's anything to this industry being bad at making software?
00:26:29
Speaker
Yes. Yeah, there's there's there's two kind of buckets of bad tools that we see. And one is... Those get poured into the bin. Yeah. yeah One is literally a form turned into an app.
00:26:43
Speaker
Yep. So it doesn't really save time. They'll probably pitch some analytics because we now have more. Yeah, what's the there's always ah there's always is's like one LinkedIn post a week that's like, this is digitization, not digitalization. or whatever Yeah, yeah. Where like make a digital version of the existing shitty process. Yeah, exactly. that thing.
00:26:59
Speaker
So that there's that bucket. And then there's the other side where you have like the founders are too academic. Yeah. So they go to the other extreme. able yeah um You go to the other extreme and massively over engineer and under appreciate what is needed.
00:27:17
Speaker
to a point where they're almost confused that it's not being taken up because it's ye in their view saving or doing something extreme, but everyone goes, wow, that's just like so far from reality.
00:27:28
Speaker
Yep. The things that are good about construction, especially if the founding team or whatever are from construction, the things that are good about people from construction is they will find solutions to any problem. ah The bad thing is, and they'll do that with whatever they have available.
00:27:43
Speaker
And the bad side to that is that will usually mean some hacky ah you know, things connected together with some strings and whatever on a project.
00:27:53
Speaker
That mindset applied to building a product can end up with some pretty convoluted and hard to use tools. So yeah, I think there is something to, you do need deep industry experience to understand the context of the people that are going to use or benefit from the software.
00:28:11
Speaker
yeah But in order to have built that, you have built a kind of skill set that is I'll solve any problem with a piece of sticky tape, a spreadsheet, yeah and and ah and a whiteboard.
00:28:23
Speaker
um And so, yeah there is, i think there is something to that. Yeah, sure. Yeah, I'm going to name some examples, but yeah, we we see it. Well, version one of Apex.
00:28:37
Speaker
Yeah, that was a that was a fun time.
00:28:42
Speaker
um So yeah, I think um there there is that balance. You need the real world experience to understand what teams actually want need. And it doesn't end there. we speak to teams every single day. try and maintain some sort of understanding. yeah And there's not over-engineering to the point where teams on sites just go, that's just not something we Like, it's so complicated.
00:29:01
Speaker
You're tackling problems that don't exist because you've picked to a thread and you've pulled it to a point where you're no longer in the industry in terms of but that thought process. Yeah, it's super hard to stay focused as well because you get that, you know, maybe they give the free trial to that
AI's Impact on Construction Software Development
00:29:14
Speaker
first customer. That first customer goes, okay, that's, you're solving, i don't know, you're doing photo sharing or whatever.
00:29:20
Speaker
We have this other problem that's immediately adjacent to photo sharing. And we'll pay you for it. Oh, yes yeah. Yeah. I'm in London at the moment. The other night we went to a contact meetup and I listened to conversation after conversation around the room of uh yeah we're building this thing for this customer because they like what we did on this thing and it's like just adjacent to it yeah it's very it's very hard to stay focused in the industry because of how it's this like thousand cottage industries there isn't you know ubiquity instead of tools processes inside companies vary slightly between company to company and it's super easy to overfit to one company
00:30:00
Speaker
Super easy. Yeah. Or one person's view within a company. You know, yeah. How Tom does document control is the app. Yeah. Yeah. and Yeah. I think your point about maybe really early applications, it also references that they're coding them with V0, which is one of these like vibe code, like a love of ball or bolt.
00:30:21
Speaker
I've not seen it, but think people are like selling Do you think people are vibe coding tools and try to sell them the next week in this space? Have you ever seen it? I've never seen it. You might have to explain to everyone what vibe coding is.
00:30:33
Speaker
Yeah, okay. Let me wind back a bit. So, you know, you've heard of AI. Well, the thing that it's good at is writing stuff in languages. It's really good at writing code.
00:30:47
Speaker
And there are different applications emerging for the use of ai coding. So sometimes it's as an assistant in the process of coding with the developer.
00:30:58
Speaker
But there is also this ah new category of tool that's been lovably called Vibe Coding. where you can kind of think of it as you chat to the chat bot and it codes off the back of the chat. So you say, I want an app that does photo sharing, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it builds a version of that app. It's got bugs and stuff all over it And you keep trying to work with it to improve it.
00:31:19
Speaker
And then occasionally you'll make a prompt and it will actually gentlyly delete everything. And you'll go, oh, shit, I've lost. So there's a bunch of these tools that have grown rapidly over the last ah even months.
00:31:29
Speaker
So Bolt is a big one. Lovable is a big one. And then um other platforms that are existing platforms like Vercel, which is don't know what that is, this ah that have this V0 tool.
00:31:42
Speaker
Anyway, there's a whole space of them. ah And ah yeah, if you're listening, I would recommend going and playing with one like a bolt or a lovable because you can start for free and you'd be amazed at what you can build by just chatting to a chatbot.
00:31:56
Speaker
But do you think people are doing that and then trying to sell that up like a week later? I'd imagine so because if we think about um like a power apps, how many teams we speak to that built some sort of form or something in a power app. yeah If suddenly you go, okay, that's probably a consistent problem across loads projects, you could pretty rapidly on your own at almost no cost build an app, build a brand, build a website, try to sell it.
00:32:20
Speaker
um And you can imagine them just being thrown everywhere. so We're removing the need for developers in theory to an extent. But suddenly it opened up a lot of doors to people without venture capitalist cash or even their own cash to do side hustles and try and push it and It's quite a small network of people.
00:32:41
Speaker
if you are someone that has a network and you have built an app, you're probably throwing it around quite easily.
Unresolved Future of Oracle's Construction Software
00:32:46
Speaker
Having played with these tools, it's super easy to get to something that's like, well, that was a pretty cool party trick.
00:32:53
Speaker
But the second you try and fix some, like it's very hard to get something fully polished. So if that is happening, I think I'm back on Ricky's side because yeah that's going to confuse burn lot of people. yeah I can't imagine it would go far, but it'll be it may it gives the impression that there's lots of apps out there.
00:33:11
Speaker
Yeah, just muddies the whole space. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Keep the LinkedIn posts going. We'll keep discussing. Thanks, Ricky. Right. You want read us out? think so. Thank you very much, everyone, for tuning into today's show.
00:33:24
Speaker
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