Part 1 of this blog series started with the assertion that product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions are becoming increasingly important to enterprises in a strategic sense. However, not all PLM products are created equal, especially in light of their different origins. Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series started with the assertion that product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions are becoming increasingly important to enterprises, to a strategic degree. However, not all PLM products are created equal, especially in light of their different origins. Read the rest of this entry »

In this day and age of globalization, ever-shorter new product introduction (NPI) cycles and overall product lifecycles, partner collaboration, and whatnot, product lifecycle management (PLM) software solutions have lately increased their strategic significance to enterprises. In his recent Forbes blog post contribution, PTC’s CEO Jim Heppelmann touts PLM as a new path to shareholder value. He argues that the PLM repository of data should be an enterprise system of record rather than mundane transactional enterprise resource planning (ERP) data. Read the rest of this entry »

My recent article Has SAP Become a PLM Factor to be Reckoned With? concluded that while SAP PLM can be a system of record in most departments within enterprises, it has yet to win the hearts and minds of engineering departments for lack of its own computer-aided design (CAD) system. But the article concluded with SAP’s stated vision of providing 3D visualization and communication capabilities for all asset- and product-related processes for the entire enterprise. The SAP PLM team’s strong belief is that 3D viewing is not just for engineering departments, but also for the entire enterprise. This vision also includes user-centric workplaces for engineering and research and development (R&D) teams.

To that end, in early September 2011, SAP acquired Right Hemisphere, a leading provider of visual enterprise solutions based in San Ramon, California (US) and Auckland (New Zealand). Founded in 1997, Right Hemisphere is a provider of visual product communication and collaboration solutions enabling manufacturers to optimize their global product development, launch, and support processes. Organizations have invested in operational processes and IT systems to improve product lifecycle efficiencies, yet delivery of precise and up-to-date product information to the extended enterprise in a timely, efficient, and usable form remains difficult today.

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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.

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In the deluge of news revolving mainly around the Big Five product lifecycle management (PLM) vendors, i.e., Siemens PLM, Dassault Systemes, Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC), Oracle Agile PLM, and SAP PLM, hardly any noise comes from smaller PLM providers in the lower end of the market. To be certain, many smaller PLM players, who had been catering to the mid-market, such as former MatrixOne or Agile Software, have lately been gobbled up by their larger counterparts.

Thus, in addition to Arena Solutions and its pure on-demand PLM offering as well as Aras’ open source PLM offering, the only other viable choice for smaller enterprises remains Omnify Software. Privately held Omnify Software is headquartered in Tewksbury, Massachusetts (US), with another US office in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

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