In a quick 6 months the AEC Tech Space has seen a few interesting acquisitions. Autodesk acquired Horizontal, Meridian Systems acquired Dimension 5, Viewpoint acquired Construction Imaging, Autodesk Acquired Vela Systems, and Trimble acquired WinEst and Tekla a bit back... Will this and the string of acquisitions before it begin to become more useful and efficient by progressing toward cloud characteristics, deployment models and delivery methods or will it merely be a new umbrella focused on lowering overhead to distribute the same flavors?

I've got some thoughts on what this all means, mostly hoping it goes the cloud route of better integrated solutions (think NIST self service and programmable) from both the business and technical side. For example better standardization around integration protocols that customers or service providers like my company can leverage and/or better access to a broader range of business software and related vision for customer from vendors. So far however I've seen little formal action/planning on this, even dating back to the acquisition of primavera, timberline, meridian, and a few others 4 or 5 years back.

For some deeper/alternative perspectives, here's a good article from my friend Mike Carrazzo over at Constructech Magazine.

http://www.constructech.com/news/articles/article.aspx?article_id=9319&utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CT&utm_content=CT+Today+7_3_12