Part 1 of this blog series introduced Needham, Massachusetts, United States (US)-based Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC, NASDAQ: PMTC), which is an over $1 billion (USD) large software company that develops, markets, and supports product development software solutions and related services. The article analyzed the company’s genesis from its inception in 1985 until the mid-2000s.

Part 2 then analyzed the more recent acquisitions of the products that have meanwhile been turned into integrated modules for the idea concept and product design phases of the product lifecycle within PTC Windchill 10.0, which started shipping in April 2011 (see TEC’s certification report on the product here). The article established that the product lifecycle management (PLM) arena, also referred to as “Enterprise Solutions,” and the realm of computer-aided technologies (CAx), referred to as “Desktop Solutions,”  are two distinct markets that present different growth opportunities for the vendor.

Part 2 concluded with an analysis of the PTC Windchill PLM suite [evaluate this product], which is one of PTC’s main product lines and growth engines. Part 3 analyzed the current state of affairs of PTC’s desktop solutions (including the novel PTC Creo suite of applications, as another growth engine) and the company’s competitive positioning.

The final part of this blog post series will conclude with my discussion with PTC’s executives about recent events and the company’s current state of affairs. In the meantime, I attended the company’s PlanetPTC 2011 user conference in June 2011, and here is the blog post series with my impressions and observations.

Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series talked about the major (blockbuster of a sort) announcements at PTC’s PlanetPTC Live 2011 annual user conference, which was held in mid-June 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada, US. These announcements were as follows:

1. General availability (GA) of nine PTC Creo 1.0 design applications.
2. Showcasing the Windchill 10.0 product lifecycle management (PLM) suite.
3. The acquisition of MKS Inc. and its flagship Integrity platform for embedded software lifecycle management.

But there were a number of other announcements that were seemingly not that earth-shattering. Still, these announcements indicate the ongoing PLM/computer-aided design (CAD) market trends and will likely have significant implications on other product development software market players’ moves.

Read the rest of this entry »

Living in close proximity to the headquarters of PTC (NASDAQ: PMTC) in the Boston metropolitan area, and given numerous contacts and interactions with the vendor in the past, it might sound surprising that only this past summer I attended the vendor’s annual PlanetPTC Live conference for the very first time. Well, at least my former colleague Kurt Chen did attend PlanetPTC Live 2010, and based on his report from the time, there were no major earth-shattering announcements.

Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series introduced Needham, Massachusetts, United States (US)-based Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC, NASDAQ: PMTC), which is an over US$ 1 billion large software company that develops, markets, and supports product development software solutions and related services. The article analyzed the company’s genesis from its inception in 1985 through the mid 2000s.

In addition to delivering Pro/ENGINEER (a.k.a., Pro/E, recently renamed Creo Elements/Pro) the first parametric, associative feature-based, solid (3D) modeling computer-aided-design (CAD) software in 1988, PTC has since acquired 18 companies to add both technology and industry expertise to its offerings. The article paid special attention to the following noteworthy acquisitions:

• Computervision in 1998 for its competing CADDS product, but which also, as a byproduct of the acquisition, provided PTC with Windchill Technologies and its first-to-market Internet-based product lifecycle management (PLM) solution. Today, the PTC Windchill PLM suite [evaluate this product] is one of the company’s two main product lines and growth engines (as it will be analyzed shortly)
• The Division Group in 1999, for the visualization ProductView product, which was recently renamed Creo Elements/View in connection with the launch of PTC Creo, which will be described in more detail in subsequent articles
• Arbortext in 2005, for its technical product data authoring and dynamic publishing solution, followed by the acquisition of ITEDO, a 2D and 3D technical illustration and animation software company, in 2006. The added capabilities for dynamic authoring, publishing, and service information have enabled service organizations to create and manage the content needed by field service professionals
• Aptivis Technology Corporation in 2005, which formed the basis of Windchill FlexPLM [evaluate this solution], a specialized version of Windchill that has enabled PTC to address the enterprise PLM needs of retailers as well as footwear and apparel/fashion (so-called “softline”) manufacturers and retailers
• CoCreate in 2007, for its direct modeling 3D CAD capabilities, primarily to add its existing customers and history-free, dynamic modeling capabilities to PTC’s CAx (computer-aided technologies) arsenal. The product was recently renamed Creo Elements/Direct (see Part 1 for more detail on the differences between parametric/history-based and explicit/direct modeling approaches) Read the rest of this entry »