Collaborative engineering for $120 a month

CoCreate Software, the product data management (PDM) software firm that vanished from the UK some 18 months ago, has resurfaced with a rather different collaborative engineering system. Its OneSpace.net is a software tool designed for SMEs and workgroups that allows diverse and distributed project team members to manage projects, share ideas and interact ad hoc online without spending big money. Built on Microsoft .Net technology, it’s available either hosted or through conventional licensing. The hosted service is $120 per user per month, while licences cost $995. It looks set to allow much smaller organisations than before get the value out of collaborative engineering without the price tags usually associated with PDM/PLM systems. A few points: the virtual online workspace it provides is secure; there’s an integrated centre for web-based ‘meetings’; there’s application sharing and instant messaging optimised for engineering data and project teams; and there are useful markup tools. There is also a decision and task tracker and a 3D model explorer for dynamically evaluating product design alternatives. Altogether a pragmatic and useful toolset at a very low price that could pay for itself time and again. If on the other hand, you’re after full PLM, you need to look elsewhere.