In a well-established upper-range product lifecycle management (PLM) market total platform replacements are a rare occurrence. Brazil-based Embraer, one of the world’s largest aircraft manufacturers, has recently selected PTC’s Windchill PLM technology solutions to “help bring new innovative aircraft to market faster, more efficiently, and with the highest levels of quality.” With the switch from its legacy PLM provider to PTC, Embraer says that it is preparing for an expected increase in demand for new aircraft in the next few years.

Embraer’s objective in the overhaul is to modernize its technology infrastructure and business processes in order to meet accelerated delivery schedules while maintaining the company’s commitment to quality and safety. Embraer’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform is SAP, and while the company did attempt in the past to use the SAP PLM suite, it was not up to scratch for Embraer’s needs. Perhaps the latest SAP PLM 7.x series could have stepped up to the plate, but that would have required the ERP platform’s upgrade too, which Embraer reportedly wasn’t ready for at the time. Read the rest of this entry »

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.

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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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