From iMat to iDesk: The Future of Engineering Appliance

January 28, 2012

What do you think about the future designer workspace? I assume some of my readers remember drawing board in multiple variation when it was a primary working place for engineer and designers.

However, time is running fast, and we probably need to think about the future of engineering workspace. Few years ago, Microsoft was talking about surface computer. I was monitoring recent CES event in Las Vegas and trying to find anything that can lead me to the future trends. 82 inch Gorilla-glass multitouch display was presented by Perspective Pixel. I didn’t find any engineering and design examples of such big-screen usage, but I can imagine them.

Now let me dream a bit about the future. I was laughing some time ago, when the following set of Steve Jobs pictures was published - iPhone, iPad, iBoard, iMat.

At the same time, things can become serious. Navigate your browser to the following article in MacLife. Rethink Apple- iDesk.

What is my conclusion? Thinking 10 years ago, it was hard to predict today’s computing realities. At the time when computers soon to become accessorizes (e.g. iWatchz), the future of iDesk for engineers can become a reality in 5-7 years. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PLM, Expensive Documentation and Cheap Texbooks

January 21, 2012

Apple is going to eduction. Bam… It sounds fantastic. Textbooks are on the iPad. I was screening few publications about this event yesterday. One of them specifically caught my attention – Publisher Terry McGraw on Steve Jobs and Digital Textbooks: “This Was His Vision”. Another one from Mashable – Why the iPad Won’t Transform Education — Yet. You can ask me – how is iPad educational story is related to PLM? Here is what I’m thinking…

Technical Publication

The topic of product documentation is very important to manufacturing companies. Customer demands with regards to the product documentation are growing. It should be rich and precise. The stuff that was completely appropriate 5 years ago, today is obsolete. Customers are interested how to have a high-quality documentation, technical instructions and maintenance manuals. I’d like to quote Jim Brown of Tech-Clarity. Here is the passage from his paper "The business of 3D Technical communication":

3D product communication goes beyond flat, static documents to incorporate richer, interactive, more realistic representation of products.

PLM vendors started to think about applications in this field already 5-6 years ago. It ended in multiple acquisitions and partnerships. PTC acquired Abotext back in 2006. Dassault acquired Seemage (aka 3DVIA Composer) in about the same timeframe. I can bring few more examples.

Tablet Computer and Technical Publication Platforms

iPad introduction and following golden rush of alternative post-PC platforms are presented new opportunity to PLM software vendors. You can see how companies are trying to approach a tablet platform for delivery of technical publication stuff. Below you can see two examples – one from PTC Arbotext and the second one is coming from Cortona3d

PLM and Technical Documentation

In my view, the value of product documentation and technical publicaton is clear. An interesting point if you think will be possible to convert high-quality product documentation into sellable assets. Actually, in my view, companies can try to do so. What if manufacturing companies will start selling (or renting) product documentation the same way Apple plan to sell textbooks? I don’t think it is crazy.

What is my conclusion? Do you think PLM vendors, and their partners will start buying iPad maintenance textbook on the iPad? Who knows? At least, it becomes obvious that sometime the most successful business models are sounds like a crap in the beginning. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PLM and Multiplatform Development

December 28, 2011

Please welcome a new-old word – multiplatform. When did you hear about for the last time? For those of you counting 15+ years in the industry it reminds the time CAD was a place of heavy workstation with ***NIX operation systems, etc. For a very long period of time, CAD and PLM were a place where 99% of software was developed on top of Microsoft platforms. I touched this topic in my blog almost a year ago. Navigate to this link to refresh your memories. So, I decided to come again to this topic.

The diversity of software-development platforms for engineering and manufacturing these days is much broader than 2-3 years ago. Apple, Table, Android, iPad – all these names came to the play recently and changed the landscape of what we do. Take a look on the following chart I made playing with these names on Google Trends:

PLM – Legacy and Integration Services

These two topics become even more important in the context of multiple platforms and enterprise software (PLM is a typial use case). Existing implementations need to be support. Service companies and IT will make implementation and develop new solutions based on the software provided by vendors. This is a very complicated set of dependencies.

What is my conclusion? I think, world changed again, and we are moving from mono-development culture to multiple platforms again. It raises multiple decision points in front of software vendors and service providers. It looks like coming years will provide a bigger challenge to these companies to make a right choice about how to balance between legacy and future, existing platforms and future trends. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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Why Apple isn’t cool for engineers? Or you are here to work…

July 9, 2011

Apple isn’t cool.. Got your attention? Okay… Today is two years, since I switched my everyday life to MacBook. It is enough time to make some conclusion. I was almost ready to write my next blog post as some kind of "My last two years with MacBook Pro", but I stumbled on the following article – Keep it in your pants – Pet Peeve#1 in CAD Insider, written by Roopinder Tara. Spend few minutes to read that blog. The following passage is my lovely one:

I don’t have any Apple computers. Nor am I yearning for one. My daughter is. She is way cooler than me. But when I look around, I don’t see any engineer using them. Not for production work. Just writing this will ensure that I will be pelted by Mac enthusiasts, but like mysterious forces others insist upon, I still deny their existence without visual proof.

So, despite the fact I can be classified as "a blogger going on rants", I decided to put few stories related to what, in my view, is going around PC/Windows, Apple and engineers working in manufacturing companies.

You are here to work, not to play.

Does anybody remember this phrase? Actually, I do… very well. It was a very common answer on the complains about software that (to say politely) "less usable" than expected. Business software was built for business and not for a game. So, everybody supposed to RTFM and work with the software purchased by a company. I think it was very acceptable 10 years ago. However, voices of people that started to ask about usable software becomes more and more louder. Companies like SolidWorks proved that user experience does matter. Finally, I can see more and more engineers looking how to use cool software.

This is such a useless device…

This statement belongs to the engineering manager of one of the very respectful manufacturing company in US. And the device is "iPad 1". The conversation actually happened a year ago, and it was about few months after iPad was released to the market. When we are still waiting for evidence of a massive migration of manufacturing companies to iPad, I think this event is not as far somebody can image. I found the following example interesting (even if it comes from non-manufacturing domain). The article from NYT says the story about the legal firm migrating a few hundreds attorneys to iPad.

This week, Proskauer Rose, one of the nation’s largest law firms, began making iPad 2s available to all its lawyers. So far, 500 of the firm’s 700 lawyers have requested an iPad and a desktop computer over a laptop.

Btw, Few weeks ago, I got an email from the same engineering manager saying – "I’m starting to believe that you may be on to something with iPads…". Since the last time, we talked the same manufacturing company he is working for, switched completely from Blackberries to iPhones.

Visual Proof

Now let me talk about "visual proof". When I switched my life to MacBook pro, two years ago, very few of my closest friends and colleagues were running on Apple. However, going back in 2007 and 2008, I noticed a growing number of Apple computers around me on conferences and in public places. Back that time, my corporate laptop was IBM/Thinkpad. Two years later, I can see many people around me switched their lives to Apple computers. Enterprises and manufacturing companies are moving much slower, but it is just a matter of time.

What is my conclusion? Let me think about a computer as a device with its own lifecycle. It was a time computer was big, bulky and took a whole room in your company. These big computers proved their existence by solving particular unsolved problems. Microsoft made computers smaller and affordable. Thinking about post-PC era, I can see people considering computers a device that helps them to get an everyday job done. And it should take fewer hassle, problems, calling specialists or IT. So, criteria changes and it will definitely change the landscape of computer devices we are using. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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Building Engineering Office Around Mac?

February 15, 2011

Apple is trending these days. Not surprising me. At the same time, I don’t want to make this post a place where Apple fan boys will argue with Wintel aborigines. I read the following information week article “Building The Mac Office“. I found the beginning of the phrase very PLM-wish-list-like:

Macs generally require fewer IT resources and retain their value better than Windows-based PCs — that’s a key consideration for cash- and resource-strapped small and midsize businesses. And the iPhone and iPad, with their strong Mac integration, make it easier for businesses to move into the new era of mobile computing.

I decided to make a small exercise and find out what CAD and PLM software is available or recently became available for Apple related platforms.

CAD on Mac

I found Autodesk as a absolute leader in presenting Apple-compatible software on their website. Navigate to the following link – Mac Compatible Products to find both Mac OS and Apple hardware compatibility with Autodesk products. Another interesting link – Pure Mac, you can use to find Mac-compatible CAD systems. I can find another interesting list of ranked CAD software for Mac on the following CNET download website. In addition to that Siemens NX software 2 years ago announced their NX software available on Mac. Navigate to the following link to figure out more.

Rumors, App Store and more…

Product availability for Mac is actively rumored on the internet. You can find a significant number of forum posts and references related to the availability of existing software packages on the Mac platform. SolidWorks made a significant rumored announcement about new technologies coming on Mac a year ago. However, on the last SolidWorks World 2011 in San-Antonio, I haven’t seen many Apple machines on stage. Recent release of App Store on Mac introduced the next story in app distribution. Started in iTunes, followed by iOS App Store and now coming on Mac, it can be a new way to distribute tools.

iOS

As I wrote recently iOS became a popular place to make experiments by many companies. I posted couple of weeks ago -3D CAD/ PLM on iPad: Future or Baloney? iOS (iPod, iPad, iPhone) became a success story. On the following slide, you can see some statistics about how iOS is proliferating.

PLM

The PLM for Mac story is questionable for me. I can see meaning of desktop design tools. However, PLM products are very likely become Web-based. Together with iOS apps mentioned above, PLM web tools can provide a complete Mac-compliant story.

What is my conclusion? It will take some time for CAD/PLM vendors to build a complementary Mac story. After years of windows dominance, it seems to me Apple found a new dominant trend – usability. However, don’t take me wrong. In my view, this is not only about coolness. I don’t think I made an exhaustive list of products in this post. If you know about any products I didn’t mention here, please share links and your opinion with me. I want to share one personal story with you. One of my good friends recently moved from Windows laptop to a new Mac Air. He wasn’t a big fan of Apple and his needs in the laptop was limited to Office apps and the internet. Surprisingly, he found Macbook Air more stable and usable – fewer crashes, fast start-up times, better performance. Just an opinion. YMMV.

Best, Oleg
Freebie.

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iPad and Enterprise PLM

July 28, 2010


iPad sales are skyrocketing. I read “Global CIO: Top 10 Reasons Steve Jobs & Apple Are The Future Of IT”. Take a look and make your opinion. My first impression was – CIO readers are those who potentially can face the end of their carrier if future Apple’s movement into enterprise organization will be so successful. A very interesting quote, in my view:

“The iPad, very surprisingly in the first quarter, during the first 90 days we already have 50% of the Fortune [100] that are deploying or testing the iPad. This is incredible” (emphasis added). Yes indeed—that is incredible,—particularly for a company that doesn’t actively court corporate business. So folks—don’t get caught way behind the trend!

The Global CIO article made me think about how enterprise PLM can solve some of their fundamental problems by leveraging iPad trends in the enterprise. Among the list of the most important enterprise PLM challenges is to make PLM systems to be available for the broad range of the users in the enterprise. PLM generally failed to achieve that because of PLM system complexity and PLM price point. Users voted to corporate emails, Microsoft Excels and lately Microsoft SharePoint to help them to deliver PLM IP to the end users beyond an engineering department. Here are my 3 points why I think iPad may help enterprise PLM to achieve their original goals.

Coolness Factor
iPad can definitely unlock “coolness factor” and help PLM to deliver their message to end users. Business management, mobile users, manufacturing shop floor – this is my short list for the first users to adopt future iPad PLM apps. Some application restructuring is required, indeed.

Usability
PLM continuously criticized for their complexity and lack of usability. Following some Apple standard may help PLM to clean their application misbehavior in this space. Everything PLM vendors need to do is just following Apple development standards. Sounds crazy, isn’t it?

Pricing Strategies
The price becomes an issue. When complexity is kicked out, the issue of commodity can become an issue. The PLM differentiation strategies will stop work to protect PLM vendors in their high-margin software model.

What is my conclusion? I can see iPad can be bootlegged into enterprise organizations much sooner and faster than we can expect. If history repeats again, it can be done in the same way PC does it in the beginning of 1980s. Is it a potential danger for existing software outfit and specifically enterprise PLM? Certainly not. Their core business is protected by data locking strategies. However, it can finally lock down their potential growth if organizations will move fast into iPad infusion rally. Time to think fast, in my view. Watching TeamCenter iPad video, I can say some of the PLM companies recognized this potential. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PLM, 3D Virtual and Apple Patents

April 6, 2010

I’d like to put a short note this morning. It comes from my review of Patently Apple blog. The very interesting patent granted to Apple in the area of 3D virtual stores. The interesting is how Apple defines a presence in this virtual shop:

Apple’s patent FIG. 9 shown above, illustrates an embodiment of an interface to an online store. The example shown is an implementation of region 112 of FIG. 1 as rendered in a browser. Alice, a character represented as an example in the patent, “is visiting the Acme website at noon. Accordingly, a sun (904) is included in region 112. If Alice were to return later in the day, a moon or star icon might be shown instead of sun 904. Other indicators, such as different color schemes during the fall season or winter holidays can also be included.”

I think, such patent can be an alarm in front of CAD and PLM affiliated companies thinking about 3D virtual experience. The competition in 3D space can get to the point when the interests of design software manufacturers will clash with companies thinking about 3D user experience everywhere.

Just my thoughts… What do you think about that?
Best, Oleg

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