It can be infuriatingly difficult to find out even some fairly basic information about the machinery available for working stone, so it was with fairly low expectations that I visited the new website of Italian machinery makers GMM, which went live in September.

The site is in Italian and English and inevitably has some quirky translation – inevitably but avoidably simply by using an English interpreter, I would have thought.

Nevertheless, the text is intelligible and is actually pretty good – in fact, better than on some of the English sites I have visited!

And, mercifully, there is useful information about each of the machines offered by GMM – well, not quite all of them as the new Intra launched at the Marmomacc exhibition in Verona in October had not yet been added to the site when I visited it at the end of November.

But apart from the Intra, the GMM range appears with a page for each machine carrying some real information about the construction and features of the machines. The photographs could be clearer, or at least click through to higher resolution version – or, perhaps, videos. But at least there are pictures of each machine. And at the end of each page is a button to download a PDF of a brochure that includes a table summarising the specification.

The site is refreshingly simple to use. It is clearly signposted and there are no silly bits of technology getting in the way of finding out quickly what you need to know.

GMM have been among the leaders of developments in stone sawing technology since the company was formed in 1993, and have now branched out into stone polishing machinery with the purchase of a share of Cemar, and there is a link to the Cemar website by clicking on the Cemar logo on the GMM website.

One piece of information missing from the new website, of course, is the price of any of the machines. It is perhaps understandable as the English translation is intended for the world, not just the UK. I understand the argument that the makers want to sell the benefits of their machines so you are already half way committed before you discover the price – I understand it but am not entirely convinced by it.

The absence of prices makes even odder the shopping trolly included on the pages. It is odd anyway because you cannot quite see people deciding on-line to place an order for a machine that is, perhaps, £80,000 and paying for it with a credit card. But with no prices quoted, they can’t do that anyway. Perhaps it is for the benefit of other parts of the world.

A useful site. Rating: 88%