PLM Open Source is Better Without Open Source

January 2, 2013

Open source is one of the PLM trends I covered in the past in my blog. I wanted to come back to this topic again. The title of my blog post was half stolen from the article on opensource.com – Open source software policy is better without open source. Read the article and made your own conclusion. The following passage is my favorite:

When the OMB and DOD declared open source software to be "commercial software," it wasn’t a bureaucratic trick to legitimize open source. They meant it quite literally: software is software, and whether it was developed by open source, a proprietary company, or a team of monkeys, all the same rules apply.

Open source software introduced lots of changes in the way software developed for the last 10 years. If I recall open source software policies used by the company I worked for a decade ago, it was completely different back that days. The biggest problem of manufacturing companies (and other enterprises) to deal with open source is trustful support contacts. Here is another passage from the same opensource.com artcile:

The underlying concern (beyondplm: about support), though, is valid. Unsupported software presents a risk. Poor support is almost worse—think of the hours we’ve all wasted with an unqualified or unresponsive support operation. This isn’t specific to open source. Bad support is bad support, no matter how the software was developed.

Aras PLM, the company experimenting with open source and PLM was on my monitor for the last 5 years. Aras developed their business strategy around so-called Enterprise Open Source. The definition itself is not self-explaining. One of a few "smaller PLM vendors" staying alone and independent since early 2000s, Aras’ experiments overall are quite interesting. Making some research on Aras website, I found it presents little to none mentioning of "open source" terms at least from home page.

What is my conclusion? Aras enterprise open source is an innovation in PLM licenses and business models. The discussion about "true" open source definition I’ve seen in the past is probably irrelevant in case of PLM. I’ve seen little to none interest of manufacturing companies to modify existing software code. Opposite to that, I’ve seen lots of interest to develop on top of the software platform with predictable licensing model. The development of new business models is one of the most complicated areas enterprise software is going to discover coming years. Enterprise open source, free software, software-as-a-service (SaaS) – here are just few examples of different approaches in this space. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

picture credit opensource.com article

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PLM Cloud Interest and AAA PLM Players

October 29, 2012

The interest to cloud PLM is growing these days. At the beginning of this year, I discussed future PLM business model during the PLM Innovation conference in Munich. You can navigate to my historical post here. You can see lots of conversations about cloud these days. However, until now, only one from major PLM players – Dassault, was playing cloud game. As it was mentioned by Bernard Charles during DSCC 2011 event, Dassault invested 2B into building of the unique online cloud platform. This is not true any more. Earlier last week, Siemens PLM announced the availability of TeamCenter on the cloud. Navigate here to read Siemens PLM announcement. According to Siemens PLM:

Teamcenter on the cloud enables companies to move some, or all, of their computing infrastructure to a third-party cloud service provider versus investing in their own hardware. This gives customers cost effective access to enterprise grade IT infrastructure and resources without the need for capital expenditure. Siemens now supports Teamcenter on three of the leading cloud services, Microsoft Windows Azure, IBM SmartCloud™ Enterprise+ and Amazon Web Services. The company has completed a certification and enablement program for Teamcenter delivered on each of these service provider’s IaaS offerings.

I found an interesting writeup about TeamCenter on the cloud made by PJ of TEC. Navigate to this link to read -Siemens Teamcenter Going to the PLM Cloud. PJ is analyzing what is behind TeamCenter cloud announcement. This is an important passage, in my view, which explains that:

While the benefits such as faster time to value, dynamic scalability, and lower TCO are indisputable, this is just the typical first cloud-enabling step of moving the infrastructure to the cloud. Certainly, there is also the benefit from accessing the PLM system from the Internet, and at the analyst event, we also saw a demo of a mobile user interface (UI) in the cloud. But our understanding was that Siemens is not yet going to provide a subscription model or a multitenant cloud.

At the same time, PJ concludes that despite cloud announcement, TeamCenter is not adopting ‘cloud PLM’ business by moving towards subscription model. I didn’t find any mentioning of subscription prices as well as information about future announcement. Siemens PLM press release mentioned only “business flexibility”, as was mentioned by TeamCenter cheif Eric Sterling. Here is the quote:

“The key benefit of Teamcenter on the cloud is the business flexibility it provides,” said Eric Sterling, Senior Vice President, Lifecycle Collaboration Software, Siemens PLM Software. “In today’s ever changing global landscape, the flexibility to dynamically manage infrastructure on the cloud gives customers the ability to scale up computing resources with demand and more importantly, scale down costs if demand decreases. This enables organizations to effectively manage IT budgets as an operating expense versus capital expense which can improve profitability.

AAA PLM?

I learned an interesting term in PJ’s article – “Triple A” PLM players. As I mentioned in my earlier article, Open Source and subscription-based model used by cloud PLM apps are two major PLM business disruption forces. PJ summarized it by calling three vendors – Aras, Arena Solutions and Autodesk PLM (AAA):

Siemens acknowledged that its main interest is still the perpetual license play. The vendor admitted that the so-called Triple A PLM players—Arena Solutions, Aras Corp., and Autodesk 360 PLM— are disruptive forces in terms of PLM deployment and licensing. Siemens pledged to be responsive to the market—i.e., it is constantly reviewing its practices—but everything needs to be good for both the vendor and its customers. Term-based licenses and Siemens Finance Services were suggested as possible options in the meantime.

PLM cloud awareness

I usually do my “reality check” on Google trends. You can see that now “PLM cloud” is now a visible trend. At least, you can see it on Google’s trends, which confirms the growing cloud interest from players and customers in engineering and manufacturing space. Even it is not saying much to prove the adoption and customer experience with cloud PLM, it is a confirmation of the trend and strategic direction.

plm-cloud-google-trend.png

What about PTC / Windchill?

After TeamCenter cloud announcement, PTC Windchill is the only product (vendor) that didn’t refresh their interest in a cloud PLM play. Windchill has long time an agreement with IBM about hosting of Windchill on IBM servers. You can see this offering is available here, but I PTC didn’t provide any recent updates about that offering as well as a preview about future availability of Windchill on the cloud. You can only see IBM application on demand delivery model here.

What is my conclusion? In my view, customers are starting to recognize the value of the cloud technologies for PLM. It comes in multiple aspects – IT infrastructure optimization, business models allowing to pay for services as you need them, global access and many others. It would be interesting to see how cloud technologies and product offering will be developed by PLM vendors in coming years.

Best, Oleg

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PLM and Open Source Checking Tips

October 18, 2012

Open Source Software (OSS) is a wonderful thing. For the last decade, open source changed the world of software development. PLM industry has their own open source rock stars. While I can see less hype around ‘open source’, I keep watching open source initiatives in PLM space. One of the things that very often debated in open source community is the definition of open source. In my view, the definition of open source provided by Wikipedia is getting better. Here is the one I captured today:

Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is available in source code form: the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under an open-source license that permits users to study, change, improve and at times also to distribute the software. Open-source software is very often developed in a public, collaborative manner. Open-source software is the most prominent example of open-source development and often compared to (technically defined) user-generated content or (legally defined) open content movements.[1]

However, this definition is still very vague. In order to prevent usage of the open-source software term as a meaningless marketing buzzword, we need to apply some rules. Usually, the discussion focuses on what type of OSS license is used. However, I think it is not enough. Few days ago, I bumped into the following article – How to evaluate open-source software. The article is short and worth reading. I found it very practical. It provides 7 checking tips for OSS: license, activity, age of project, unit test, code quality, basic use test, and modification test.

Does Open Source PLM fail the test?

There are few open-source PLM products, initiatives and projects I’m following. They are not equal and clearly cannot be compared. At the same time, I tried to poke open source PLM websites and tried to make some initial conclusion about how these products and projects are compatible with 7 points checking tips.

1. Aras PLM. Aras is the most visible player in open source PLM community. It includes a mature product, many reference customers and well-established community of developers and service providers. Aras is using "enterprise open source" term to describe Aras model. You can get most of the information about Aras including licensing here. Aras relies on several open source licenses. You can get Aras’ source, but for my best knowledge, it requires a specific subscription level.

2. Open PLM. Open PLM project started few years ago. Open PLM focuses on ECM (I assume "content management") around product data. The project is using Django framework and includes some other OSS like Apache and PostgreSQL. It uses GPLv3 license.

3. Open ERP / PLM. Another project I tracked connected to open source PLM space. This project is connected to OmniaSolutions. You can get more details here. It features many typical PLM functionalities starting from CAD integration and ending with BOM management and Manufacturing processes. Here is the link to Open PLM ERP wiki with documentation, video and downloads.

4. Open Source PLM activity from Prodeos. The website is a codeplex link to variety of PLM-related project and tools. Most of them related to Aras PLM and quite outdated (2010). Nevertheless, the project list is interesting and includes some utilities you can probably use not only for Aras – Office connector, AutoCAD 2011 connector, 3Dxml viewer, etc. It uses Microsoft Public License (Ms-PL).

What is my conclusion? Aras is clearly the most mature and dominant player in "open source PLM" eco-system. From the standpoint of compliance to 7 points check list, I think three of them are the most important – license, update history and code quality / unit test. Coming to OSS, you first check you license rules. Then you check how many people are using that and trying to see how to re-use the code for your project. I’m interested to learn about additional OSS PLM initiatives. If you know them, please contact me. Also, I’m very interested to learn more about your open-source experience. Speak your mind.

Best, Oleg

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PLM Cloud and New Microsoft Office Reality

July 16, 2012

For many years, Microsoft and Office were 100% associated with PC. Not any more. If you follow earlier news from today, Microsoft announced of the biggest releases for a long time – Office 2013. Long awaited release brings lots of new stuff in the Microsoft Office eco-system. Navigate here to read more from Business Insider Live blog post. The following picture is a very good one slide summary of what Office 2013 is about.

So, cloud is one of them. And it seems to me a very important one. Microsoft is going in a very sophisticated way to introduce the cloud to the masses via the hybrid Office 2013 approach that took roots first in Office 365 – PLM Excels and Microsoft Cloud Office 365. My assessment one year back that vendors need to start thinking about what will happen in the day Office will run seamlessly between cloud and PC. Here, the day just came. Here is a passage from the previous post – by default Office App store documents in the cloud, but you can save them locally.

The official statement Microsoft is taking about the cloud and PC combination. Navigate to the following post to read more – What Office 2013 will mean for your business. The following passage makes it clear

Microsoft has been saying for years that Office isn’t just the familiar desktop applications; it’s a family of applications plus servers that enable extra features in the applications, so running Office on the desktop without the Office servers means you miss out. Get Office 2013 through Office 365 and you get the servers as well. Unless you chose the Office 365 Home Premium plan – which is intended for consumers and comes with 20GB of document storage on SkyDrive – buying an Office 365 subscriptions to Office 2013 also get you Office 365 accounts with the Exchange, SharePoint and Lync services.

What is my conclusion? Microsoft Office is a dominant part of many PLM implementations. Excel is the most widely adopted PLM technology. Maybe the last statement is a joke, but only “half joke”, in my view. Microsoft is steering the wheel towards cloud and services. It will work in favor of PLM vendors pushing toward the cloud as an opportunity -Autodesk PLM 360, Arena Solutions, Dassault and Aras. It will be interesting to see the reaction of other PLM market players. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PLM Communities and Let-go Threshold

June 28, 2012

Communities are booming these days. Social networks and Web 2.0 unlocked the potential of interaction online and the idea of gathering people in a community went to mainstream. However, the original idea has nothing common with web. We can go back to organization of elite clubs, unions, discussion groups and many others. The internet makes it easy, by allowing everybody sharing content and subscribe on changes. Nowadays, we are learning how addictive this type of behavior could be. Facebook’s statistics can give you an idea of that. If you interested to know more facts, navigate to the following Mashable article – How to Tell if You’re Addicted to Facebook. I found the following passage interesting:

“The use of Facebook has increased rapidly. We are dealing with a subdivision of Internet addiction connected to social media,” said Cecilie Schou Andreassen, who conducted the study. Andreassen heads the research project “Facebook Addiction” at the University of Bergen (UiB) in Norway. The results of her research have just been published in the journal Psychological Reports.

Following public web, enterprise software companies are looking how to turn the power of communities to their advantages. The community of users was one of the most straightforward steps for many of them, but I don’t see it as a very successful one. Most of the discussion groups were limited to active users, which limit the ability to growth viral. Restrictions and social networks are not working well together.

I can see some interesting and innovative examples of community building in the space of CAD/PLM software. Aras Corp., a provider of enterprise open-source software is trying to leverage their wide free user base by organizing a community of so-called Aras Open Users. Navigate to the following link to read – Who is the member of Aras Open User Club. Aras is trying to addict users by free licensing and open resources helping to run a successful implementation. The following passage grabbed my attention:

Go to the self help section, absorb all of the information on our website, watch demos, check out the forums and learn all about the capabilities of Aras. Share this info with members of the tech team and eventual users to help them get familiar with Aras. Next, you need a roll out plan that includes how you intend to get everyone on board. The good news is that once your users understand their roles and how this powerful tool is going to help them get more done faster with better information, there will be no stopping them. Check aras.com for tips on roll out plans too.

Another example is the community of engineers built by GrabCAD. A startup company, GrabCAD is trying to follow "facebook" style allowing to engineers to upload and download CAD models for free. Funded by VCs and CAD industry veterans, GrabCAD demonstrates a very interesting way to organize engineers into community.

Together with some critics related to IP protection (read here), GrabCAD shows very impressive numbers – 250K registered engineers, 40K CAD models and 3M downloads.

What is my conclusion? I’m sure you’re familiar with "Let-go Threshold" term from your electricity school lessons. The ultimate question to all "community builders" is how to develop addiction to the network / community. Facebook did it. Some other social networks missed the point on their way and failed. In my view, the most successful communities were built around mainstream products such as SolidWorks and Autodesk. To have the right content is a key factor. A potential CAD / PLM community content is sensitive. Very often it related to IP ownership and company product development and manufacturing practices. It is not a simple place to innovate. Do you think "social innovation" is just in the early beginning of the innovation spiral? Will PLM companies be able to develop the volume of content going beyond "let-go threshold"? This is an interesting place to innovate. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PLM: Cloud and Open Source Disruptive Trajectories

June 25, 2012

Disruption. This is a word that dominates in many technological (and not only…) discussions. It is not a big secret – disruption means changes and opportunity. Back in my blogging histories 3 years ago -Future PLM face to face: Open Source vs. Cloud. After more than three years I still hold my opinion that these are two major changing opportunities in PLM industry. Few days ago, I came across an interesting article in CIO magazine – 5 Ways Cloud Computing Is Like Open Source. It is worth reading. It made me think about the common future between open source and cloud in the context of PLM systems.

Open Source Historical Lessons

Backward in early 2000s. We had lots of debates about the value of open source, specifically for enterprise software industry. I remember long running discussions about valuations of open source companies and many others. I remember the time back "open source" wasn’t allowed as a class to be included in software projects for enterprise. Here is an interesting passage from the same CIO article:

Open source triumphed. Corporate systems today routinely include a range of open-source components as a matter of course. One can argue that most of the new software components that corporations are using are, in fact, open source. I would even argue that, today, most of the innovation in infrastructure software is occurring in open-source projects, not proprietary products.

Open Source vs. Cloud: Similar Disruption?

However, these days I can see some synergy between open source models and cloud models. Aras, one of the leaders in enterprise open source, is moving to the cloud. You can read some more details about Aras’ cloud plans in my post from Aras Community Event – ACE 2012. The arguments in CIO article made me think about some sort of similarities between how value of PLM open source and Cloud PLM are presented to vendors and customers. Here is the list:

- Cloud computing provides ease of access
- Cloud computing cost less
- Cloud foster experiments and innovation
- The cloud lowers the cost of uncertainty
- The cloud challenge IT in the same way open source did

Cloud vs. Open Source: PLM Trajectories

In my view, PLM has some specific trajectories in the development of open source and cloud projects. The disruptive influence of cloud and open source looks very similar to me. At the same time, manufacturing companies are reacting differently on the potential of open source and the cloud. The potential of Aras PLM in building a powerful community around Aras Innovator is interesting. At the same time, high activity around cloud projects from large PLM companies (eg. Autodesk PLM 360) and small startups requires attention from competitors before cloud projects will triumph similar to open source.

What is my conclusion? Cloud and Open Source are equally disruptive for PLM. At the same time, open source and cloud project are positioned in a different place in the hype cycle. Open Source is a clear industry winner these days. At the same time there are lots of discussions around cloud PLM these days. What will be a dynamic of cloud PLM in the next few years? Will PLM and Open Source merge in their disruptive influence on PLM market? These are questions I’m asking these days… What is your take? Speak your mind, please.

Best, Oleg

Image courtesy of Wikipedia Hype Cycle Article.

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PLM, Touch UX and Paper Legacy

June 15, 2012

Talk to somebody about how to implement enterprise software… What is the first thing that comes to your mind? It is a complex and long process very often requires transforming your business processes and everyday habits. Believe it or not, but even these days, engineering and manufacturing company processes are heavy involving paper. It is not unusual to see the situation when after modern 3D CAD software engineers are printing drawings and ECO forms to sign for approval.

Few weeks ago, I stumbled on an interesting blog post by PLM Alpha blog of Aras Corp. The post name was self-explaining – Making PLM forms look exactly like existing paper or legacy forms with Aras. Navigate to the following link and have a read. In a nutshell, it says how Aras allows to create forms with the set of attributes and location, which will be similar to existing paper forms. Here is an example from PLM Alpha blog:

What is especially interesting is technological detail provided in the blog: Since the resulting forms are DHTML (dynamic HTML), it is possible to use any HTML features and functions in the forms, allowing unlimited artistic freedom to re-create existing legacy screens or paper forms exactly the way they look and function today.

PLM, Tablets and Touch UX

Aras blog made me think about modern changes that happen nowadays in user experience. I posted about them yesterday – What CAD and PLM vendors need to learn about touch interface? One of the trends in the design of touch user experience is mimicking existing real-world metaphors. Probably, the best example of such user experience is Book application.

The idea that came to my mind is that PLM application can simplify user adoption by relying on legacy paper forms and use modern tablet computers to make it happen nowadays.

What is my conclusion? To simplify user experience and make application easy to understand is one of the key requirements these days. I don’t know if Aras has in their mind to transform Aras Innovator DHTML forms to iPad or Android Tablet Applications. The idea seems to me cool. However, I’d be interested to speak to engineers and other people in manufacturing company to understand if it "holds the water" and can really improve the adoption and learning curve. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PLM and Integrated Project and Process Tools

June 2, 2012

Let me start today from asking you a question. How do you run your company? Regardless on size, scale and nature, the answer is simple in my view – processes and projects. It won’t surprise you if I say sometimes projects go out of schedule, and processes are stuck. Every company requires a solution to manage processes and projects these days. Do you think you can solve these problems by emails and spreadsheets? The project or process management solution are needed. I was reading Steve Bedder post – Is that a bottleneck in my process? Steve brings an example of how process and project management capabilities are integrated inPLM 360 – new cloud PLM product from Autodesk. Here is an interesting passage:

The Project Management app provides you with a live view of where all the individual tasks\items within the project are up to, as they are moved along their process by the people managing that part of the project, the top level project automatically updates accordingly. You can also quickly and easily link through to view any of the data that is being tracked and managed within each of the project tasks (assuming you have the permissions to do so).

The key aspect in this functionality to me is the ability to integrate process and project tasks with relevant “data”. FPLM project management integration tradeoffs. There are many independent process and project tools that can be used in the company. How important to have integrated project and processes tools?

Frankly, Autodesk PLM 360 is not a unique tool introduces integrated project and processes with PDM/PLM. Almost all major PLM providers have “project management” module – TeamCenter Project Portfolio Management, Enovia Program Central, Windchill Project link, Aras Program Management.

At the same time, I can see many innovative and independent tools primarily focusing on project, process and task management – starting from traditional well known Microsoft Project and going to cloud-based Basecamp, Zoho, Clarizen and many others. While project management is not a new discipline, I can see many companies are trying to come with interesting user experience, available on many devices working in a different way. One of my favorites for the last time wasdo.com claiming so-called “social project management”

What is my conclusion? Integrated vs. best in class. The dilemma isn’t new. I have an integrated GPS in my car. At the same I found myself many times using my iPhone to find a place and then enter the address into GPS system. To get right information to drive project management tool is an important function. At the same time, interaction with people usability and experience will matter as well. The car with Google’s maps in dash is probably a right solution. Integrated best-in-class class solutions – sounds like a good idea :) . Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PLM, ERP and enterprise cloud race

May 22, 2012

I was reading GIGAOM article Amazon and SAP put All-in-One in the cloud few days ago. According to the article SAP will soon make an appearance on Amazon EC2 cloud. Interesting enough it is connected to the fact almost all software of SAP rival Oracle is already available from the cloud.

Another interesting point is related to the fact Amazon is working to support product customization on the public cloud. It will remove another big barrier for deployment and implementation of enterprise software. Here is a very interesting passage:

The conventional wisdom is that big companies are wary of running ERP and other enterprise applications in a public cloud — because they tend to be quite customized and tied into other applications, which makes them difficult to forklift into the cloud. But Amazon is working to change that perception.

PLM and ERP: cloud race

In the past, CAD / PLM vendors lost the competition of C-level and IT visibility in the organization. PLM was considered as Engineering tools, and it took many years and significant effort to improve this perception (still not accomplish in full, from my standpoint). These days a typical “PLM on the cloud” discussion usually runs in too many questions about cloud PLM viability and security. At the same time, we can see how ERP vendors run their products on Amazon cloud.

PLM and Cloud / IaaS

When Amazon is considered as a definite leader in IaaS race, Aras PLM is thinking differently. During the ACE 2012 conference earlier this month, Aras announced Aras Spectrum – soon to be available on Microsoft Windows Azure platform. You can take a look on my post-ACE conference blog post – Aras PLM, Microsoft Azure and Cloud competition.

Autodesk (new PLM vendor these days) is playing with lots of “cloud toys” in the portfolio. One of the toys is PLM 360 -recently announced “cloud PLM alternative”. It is not clear what IaaS platform is using for their cloud development and deployment, for the moment.

What is my conclusion? Amazon is pushing to the enterprise by supporting major ERP vendors. Autodesk is playing with new cloud offering and probably going to make their IaaS choice later. Microsoft is experimenting with Aras PLM to provide Aras Innovator up and running on Azure Cloud. Dassault, Siemens, PTC… Are you watching?

Best, Oleg

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PLM Competition Toolbox

May 14, 2012

Normally, I’m trying to avoid the topic of PLM competition. Not very often, readers or attendees at conference are approaching me with the blunt question – what is better? TeamCenter vs. Enovia? Aras or Windchill? My typical answer – there are no “absolute advantages” for a specific PLM system. Enterprise and manufacturing companies are complicated environments. The level of complexity, strategy and current context can create a situation where each specific product will have his own advantages and disadvantages.

However, today, I want to talk about competition from the standpoint of PLM vendor. In other words, what can make PLM vendor competitive strategy more successful? To make this discussion interesting and provoking, I will use some examples of what happened in PLM market for the last 10 years. In the world where PLM buzzwords are getting very similar, I will try to answer on a single simple question – what can make PLM vendor competitive nowadays?

I can see four major strategies that can be used by vendors – discontinuity, marketing and branding, partnership and competitor’s mistakes. These are not specific characteristics for PLM companies and can be used for everybody. However, I will try to fill them with PLM context.

Discontinuity

Enterprise software is a complicated beast. PLM cannot be excluded from that list. It is complex, requires long time planning and implementation cycle. Once implementation it works for a long time,  replacement cost is high too. Add to this last 10 years of acquisition in this field and large vendor platform transformation and you will have a perfect place to play with discontinuity. Formally, nobody is discontinuing PLM/PDM products. Pro/PDM, Eigner, SmarTeam, Metaphase – all these products are supported and maintained by vendors on a certain level. Practically all PLM vendors are building a support network to deal with customers running outdated and retired systems. Therefore, these customers can become a strategic asset for competitors that will be able to propose them an interesting offer. Once the decision made, to change it will be even more complicated because of long processes, politics and corporate ego. Therefore, discontinuity play can be powerful and dangerous.

Partnership

To have good partners in business is like to have good friends in your life. If you have trusted and powerful partners, you can use it as an advantage in your competitive war. In PLM business, I can see two types of strategic partnership – service and sales channel partner (eg. IBM was such for many years in business with Dassault Systems), the parent company (eg. Siemens for Siemens PLM) or another business division (eg. SAP, Oracle, Microsoft). To develop and keep right partnership is very important. To know how to drop partnership is also one of the elements of a competitive game.

Marketing

To build a perfect marketing and branding story is another way to beat competition. Yes, I know… you are smiling and maybe even thinking – who is buying marketing PowerPoint presentations these days. Believe me or not, it happens all the time. If you are powerful and strong brand with billions of dollars in revenue, your marketing story can be very compelling. It will take time, resources and effort to sort it out. Yes, you are in danger to buy a dream. But it can be a very nice and well packed marketing. So, take it seriously. It can be 3D Experience, High Definition PLM, Instant On – dreams is an important weapon too.

Competitor’s mistakes

Last, but not least- the mistakes (or in this context – presents) made by your competitors. You need constantly and permanently watch your competitors. Low quality of a release, compatibility failure, channel problem – all these mistakes are weapon in your arsenal to build your marketing expansion.

What is my conclusion? The PLM competitive landscape becomes more dynamic than before. I can see some movements done by large companies (eg. Autodesk), smaller established companies with very innovative strategies (eg. Aras) and startup companies. As I said in one of my previous posts – PLM is a fun place again. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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