PLM Open Source: Business or Social Need?

December 1, 2009

The following NYT article drove my attention yesterday – Open Source as a Model for Business is Elusive. I already had chance to discuss open source and PLM on plmtwine. If you just came to my blog, you can review the following posts:

SaaS and Open Source: PLM Future Rides
Open Source: Is the Game Changing for PLM?
What will be PLM Open Source secret sauce?

Discussing various aspects of MySQL acquisition as part of Sun by Oracle, NYT dropped a very interesting argument related to the social aspects of open source.

“European regulators view MySQL as sort of a database of the people, a low-cost alternative to Oracle’s costly proprietary products. The regulators worry that Oracle may stop improving MySQL in favor of protecting its core traditional products, and customers will lose an important option in the database market.”

Another interesting point was related to the development of open source projects. Actually, and this is not a top secret is that companies like Google and IBM are heavily sponsoring development of Open Source products.

“Many of the top open-source developers are anything but volunteers tinkering in their spare time. Companies like I.B.M., Google, Oracle and Intel pay these developers top salaries to work on open-source projects and further the companies’ strategic objectives.”

Let’s get back to our CAD and PLM space. I could see few projects that are trying to develop open source CAD products. The most visible is ITC developing IntelliCAD platform. The concepts of IntelliCAD are complex and related to the history of DWGDirect and ODA, but it is very close to the open source concepts. IntelliCAD positioned as a cheap and no-cost alternative to Autodesk/AutoCAD product lines. Another player in PLM Open space is Aras made long road from licensed PLM software and now also positioned as an alternative to very costly products licensed by top PLM providers.

So, the conclusion I can make is very close to the assumption done in NYT- there is strong demand for open source as a cheap alternative for heavy priced licenses. At the same time, open source successes are limited, even if they are very visible (Linux, MySQL, Mozilla). To make a success for the future of PLM open source the following two questions need to be answered, in my view:

1. Who will play a role of major driving force in adoption of open source PLM products? In other words, who will play the role of Internet (like it was in cases of Mozilla and MySQL) to develop large open source PLM community. The potential candidates are very large Autodesk related customer community in case of ICT. In case of Aras, it can be Microsoft and related SharePoint business community.

2. What companies will be interested to sponsor top PLM developers and evangelists to work on the open source PLM products to bring them on the level of excellence and mass adoption? Will Autodesk be interested in development of ICT community? Maybe Microsoft will will be interested to sponsor Aras and put few bucks to support the development PLM for SharePoint?

Just my opinion. I’m looking forward to your thoughts and opinions.
Best, Oleg

21 Comments | CAD, Daily PLM Think Tank, Open Source | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

SaaS and Open Source: PLM Future Rides

November 17, 2009

Recent announcements about new company PLM+ stroke me to think again about these two interesting trends – On Demand (or SaaS if you will) and Open Source Software (OSS). In one of my previous posts, I talked about promising future trends for PLM. In my view, both (On Demand and OSS) are there.

On Demand
On the positive side of this model, I can figure out the following: no releases and upgrade milestones (at least an option to do so), no need for IT/Servers, completely web oriented, available everywhere, potentially much more mobile friendly. On the negative side of this model bold are security concerns, integration with organizational enterprise systems zoo and potential performance. The long future of on demand looks to me much brighter in comparison to today’s reality. Ability to deliver focused application using this model will be a key to success. Full blown PLM deployment with tight enterprise system integrations seems like not an option for 2010. PLM On Demand option was discovered by Arena and Agile (in the past). Both didn’t make it big enough yet to become mainstream option.

Open Source Software
OSS is a very interesting option for PLM. Huge customization and flexibility potential, services and partners involvement, business model benefits – all these factors are bold advantages for PLM. However, it is not clear if PLM community is big and mature enough to generate enough service business for PLM vendors today.

So, what is my conclusion today? On Demand option looks like favorable to those customers who are interested to get predefined functionality out-of-the-box. Do you think such set of functionality can be defined today similar to what happened to CRM? This is not clear. I want to quote Jos Voskuil blog saying “ERP systems came on the market 15 years before PLM, how many ERP on demand solutions do exist“. OSS is a very interesting opportunity to generate service money for PLM community. However, customer volume is the requirement to make this option viable.

I’m looking with great interest for both Arena and Aras experiments with On Demand and OSS. In my view, the potential change in this space can come either by newcomers with a new and interesting solution as well as by existing big vendors stepping into this space.

Just my thoughts. YMMV.

Best, Oleg.

11 Comments | Daily PLM Think Tank, Future Trends, Open Source | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

Open Source Threat for CAD

October 28, 2009

Open Source and CAD. Do you think something is going on in this direction? I had chance to discuss Open Source topic several times in my previous posts. But, actually, I almost never took an angle of CAD and open source relationships. The following article drove my attention yesterday.

Picture 23
What is interesting is that Open Source CAD alternatives specifically focusing on AutoCAD space. It will be probably obvious to remind you that in the past Autodesk made a revolution change in the CAD software space by moving CAD from lucrative and exclusive high-end environments to PC. So, should current CAD software vendors worry about Open Source threat? I don’t think so – not yet. However, in my view open source will come to the space of CAD too, and I see initial signs of movements toward this. My expectation that open source CAD introduction will happen bottom up, first will come as a mix of graphic and drawing tool and future expand in the space of mid-range CAD packages.

I’d like to mention few projects and systems in this space that I tracked so far – Archimedes project, BRL-CAD project, K-3D.

Picture 25

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Picture 27

Another interesting project is Russian Nanocad is promoting ideas of of Open Software.

Picture 28
Separate thinking should be done around Google Sketch-Up. The product is free is available from Google. With Google’s general interest and focus on Open Source, it can be considered as an interesting option too.

Picture 26

Just my thoughts. YMMV.
Best, Oleg

2 Comments | 3D, CAD, Daily PLM Think Tank, Open Source | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

PLM, Microsoft and Open Source Party

September 18, 2009

Picture 6The following publication drove my attention last week. Microsoft is jumping more and more in this Open Source.

“Now, Microsoft has unveiled an organization it says will help open source work with commercial software organizations – the CodePlex Foundation. Microsoft is also the Foundation’s sole funder, having donated $1m – a number the company will review annually.” CodePlex becomes a very strong place for open source Microsoft related community.

So, is it good or bad for PLM? With only one company (Aras) oriented on PLM and Open Source, PLM is not very friendly to Open Source and to Open Source community. How Open Source can drive PLM change ruling more and more to Open Source. There are few reasons, in my view, that will bring PLM very soon to the kind of Open Source organization:

1. Level of Services in PLM domain. High level of services makes Open Source very attractive. When customer is not focusing on sales process, but just implementing, this is sounds like good sales speech and point to discuss.

2. Huge diversification in customer environment and requirements. Sophisticated engineering and manufacturing processes are complex, in my view, to become OOTB offering. So, another level of flexibility will be needed to make these customers doing what they want.

3. Frustrations with regards to expensive PLM licenses. Today’s perception – PLM is complex and expensive. By  introducing Open Source PLM, you remove sales issue, when selling it for the first time. Customer won’t be requested to pay up-front before seeing results.

So, what is my conclusion. As I said before, Open Source is very interesting direction from many standpoints – technology, business, sales. With Microsoft becoming more active in this space, PLM companies very much oriented on Microsoft, can boost PLM implementation based on Open Source and Microsoft. Microsoft will actively promote open source projects on top of MS infrastructure such as SharePoint etc.  Will codeplex develop a sufficient community is not clear, but definitely changes in OSS landscape were started already.

What is your opinion on this?
Best, Oleg

6 Comments | Daily PLM Think Tank, Future Trends, Microsoft, Open Source | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

PLM Prompt: Blender Open Source for 3D

September 7, 2009

Interesting prompt today – I’m looking on Blender Open Project for 3D Content creation.

Picture 9

I see such projects very promising for the future of 3D software and CAD is one of them. Until now 3D CAD was considered as pretty conservative space. Many people are considering 3D CAD  as almost marriage decision. Getting more toward Open 3D CAD space can be a significant change factor in this space. What do you think about it?

Best, Oleg

2 Comments | CAD, Open Source, PLM Prompt | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

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