While opportunities for new or replacement product lifecycle management (PLM) systems at large enterprises are rare, neither is the small to medium business (SMB) market fully exploited. To that end, PTC recently announced the release of PTC Windchill PDM Essentials, the company’s product data management (PDM) software.

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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 »

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.

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My attendance of Siemens’ two-day product lifecycle management (PLM) analyst summit in the late summer of 2011 was like trying to drink from a fire hose. Even without the plant automation and manufacturing execution system (MES) discussion (which was also included in the 2010 event), there was an abundance of products and related information, and I am still trying to wrap my mind around the main messages of the event. Look for a separate article on my impressions from the summit, eventually.

In any case, the event ended with a question and answer (Q&A) session between the analysts/bloggers and Siemens PLM top executives. One question was whether, in light of Dassault Systemes recently acquiring Intercim’s MES and Enginuity for process PLM capabilities, and PTC acquiring MKS Inc. in the application lifecycle management (ALM) space, Siemens will also make any acquisitions in the near future. The diplomatic answer by Siemens was to look for some acquisitions down the track, both for technology and functional scope expansion.

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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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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.

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Part 1 of this blog series introduced Needham, Massachusetts (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. My post analyzed the company’s genesis from its inception in 1985 through the mid 2000s.

Part 2 then analyzed the most 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. My post 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,” the two distinct markets that PTC serves, represent 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 of this blog series will analyze the current state of affairs of PTC’s desktop solutions (including the novel PTC Creo suite of applications) and the company’s competitive positioning.

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 »

Needham, Massachusetts (US)-based Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC, NASDAQ: PMTC) is an over USD 1 billion large software company that develops, markets, and supports product development software solutions and related services. The company’s solutions help its client companies design products, manage product information, and improve their product development processes. PTC’s software solutions and services have helped its customers increase innovation, improve product quality, decrease time to market (TTM), and reduce product development costs.

PTC offers solutions in the product development market, which encompasses the product lifecycle management (PLM) market (i.e., product data management [PDM] and related collaborative solutions) and the so-called CAx (computer-aided technologies) market, which includes computer-aided design (CAD), computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), and computer-aided engineering (CAE) solutions. The company’s software solutions provide its customers with an integral product development system (PDS) that enables these enterprises to create digital product content, collaborate with others in the product development process, control product content, automate product development processes, configure products and product content, and communicate product information to people and systems across the extended enterprise and design chain. 

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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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