I was playing around the data I can take from the website Compete.com. You plug the URL of major CAD or PLM vendor and get the information back for free. I found it interesting to compare. In today’s world online traffic can be one of the important elements of a company marketing strategy. Unfortunately, a free version doesn’t work with sub-domains, so some of the companies were not included into my experiments.
My first test was to put Dassault and PTC. These companies are on the top list also as CAD and mindshare PLM vendors. You can see that their traffic is pretty much compatible. You can see the result online navigating on the following link.
Following my discussion about Autodesk and their potential move into PLM (or MLP) space, my next experiment was to compare mindshare PLM vendors and Autodesk. You can see the result navigating the following link. Now, picture is more interesting. Autodesk and Dassault are companies compatible in terms of revenues. At the same time, Autodesk outperforms Dassault 10 times from the standpoint of traffic.
My last test was to poke one of the PLM challengers. I picked up Aras and tried to compare their traffic with Dassault. Unfortunately, Compete alerted me that aras.com has a low traffic rate. Nevertheless, I found that results interesting. Dassault and Aras are not compatible in terms of size, but their web traffic is pretty much compatible.
What is my conclusion? Few years ago, I was reading the book Numerati, by Stephen Baker. The subtitle of the book states – “the must read for anyone who wants to understand life and business in the Google Age“. If you have some free time during the week, read this book. I think, we are coming to the point of time, when the online influence will be become a critical for company business success. Newcomers can use it as power to enter to the business. Large companies can watch it, in order not to lose their significance tomorrow. Important. Just my opinion, of course. YMMV.
Best, Oleg
Remember that SolidWorks and 3DVIA have separate websites, and the traffic numbers from the two won’t be included with a search on http://www.3ds.com. What would your charts look like if you combined the traffic from all three?
Matt, I think you are right. To combine together 3ds.com with solidworks.com and 3dvia.com makes sense. Best, Oleg