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 Practically all PLM vendors are building a support network to deal with customers running outdated and retired systems.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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Aras PLM, Microsoft Azure and cloud competition

May 7, 2012

BAM…BAM…BAM… My cloud is better than your cloud. Aras PLM made a step into cloud game with a new product called – Aras Spectrum. PLM cloud ecosystem was boring place until last week. Autodesk PLM 360 was practically playing solo “PLM Cloud” game with some additional voices coming from DS made by SolidWorks n!Fuze and n!Volve. DS products are more extension to existing design environments – CATIA and SolidWorks. So, what happened last week?

Aras Spectrum

Last week, during ACE 2012, Aras presented a new cloud PLM strategy and new product – Aras Spectrum. So, what is behind this name? In a nutshell, Aras is partnering with Microsoft Azure team to deliver Aras Cloud PLM solution to mega-customers with high level of scalability and unique Aras cloud strategy. The main point Aras made is related to the reality of the PLM deployment requiring on-site integration between “multiple-clouds”. You can see this point presented on the following slide:

Aras introduces the three-way strategy to deploy Aras PLM on cloud with some mirroring functions on-premises. They called it 1/cloud mirror; 2/failsafe mirror; 3/dual deployment. You can see slides bellow. However, it is still hard to me to understand the difference between these options. What I understood from short conversation with Aras people, these options represent a different mirroring strategy.

Aras strategy is to leverage massive scale of Microsoft Azure platform to reach significant performance and scalability achievements. It includes the ability of Aras PLM to run across the world – wide network on Microsoft Azure data centers, 50,000+ users load test and more…

Which Cloud Better?

Aras is the first PLM vendors that introduce the question of “which cloud better?” to us. Until now, the main message we’ve heard from cloud providers was about how to eliminate the complexity of deployment and IT by using cloud PLM. That was the main message provided by Autodesk PLM 360 – instant on. The difference introduced by Aras is taking us to the reality of on-site customization, which unavoidable as was stated during Aras cloud presentation.

Another point of potential differentiation is cloud infrastructure. Aras is strategically positioned with Microsoft Azure. Autodesk didn’t provide any information so far about data centers and cloud infrastructure they provided. From a very brief public message provided by Autodesk publicly, PLM 360 is a true cloud application:

Autodesk PLM 360 is a true multi-tenant cloud application. Users and managers will never again have to worry about upgrades and broken customization; the application is always up-to-date and compatible with any customer-specific configuration.

Opposite to that, Aras Spectrum is by definition cloud/on-premises solution with some elements of mirroring. Aras is using additional services provided by 3rd party vendors to support so called “Aras Connected Cloud strategy:

What is my conclusion? Autodesk was a first major PLM broadly available on the cloud. However, cloud cannot be ignored these days. Aras Spectrum just confirmed that. Aras Spectrum is not released yet. I’ve heard Aras is talking about July-August 2012 timeframe (still need to be confirmed). However, it is interesting to see different views on how PLM cloud strategy can be implemented. I think, there are enough space to innovate with the cloud solutions, and I’m looking for more news.

Best, Oleg

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A moment before CAD files cloud mess…

May 3, 2012

It is hard to find a day without new announcement or breaking news related to the cloud these days. Companies are running fast to catch "a place under a cloud". The debates about the cloud are growing. Those of your reading my blog regularly, already had a chance to read multiple posts I published about the cloud. Maybe before continue to read, I’d recommend you to navigate to the following post – Product Lifecycle Data and Cloud Trap Debates. I tried to present a balanced view on advantages and risks related to cloud solutions these days.

I want to talk about CAD and the cloud or even more specific – CAD files and the cloud. Two leading companies in CAD space – Autodesk and Dassault Systems are presenting solutions allowing to store (or even synchronize) CAD files to the cloud. Dassault was probably pioneering this solution with SolidWorks n!Fuze. However, Autodesk clearly outperformed Dassault System by introducingAutodesk 360 providing 3GB of free storage for every AutoCAD user as well as other features – viewing, collaboration and sharing capabilities. Another Autodesk product – AutoCAD WS can store drawings directly to the cloud (I think both AutoCAD WS and Autodesk 360 paths need to converge somehow in the future).

The ability to store and sync CAD files using cloud services and storage is a powerful option. At the same time, the "Save As To Cloud" option is not much different from "Save As File". Everybody knows how messy file vaults look like in every company. Dou know how many CAD files are stored on local hard drives, USB discs, network storages in your company. The amount of un-managed files and data is growing. For the last 15-20 years, we didn’t succeed to create a reliable data-management option for all these files. There is a potential danger that all this "file mess" will be flowing to the cloud gates and will turn into CAD cloud mess. In my view, it creates an interesting opportunity to manage cloud-gates in more reliable ways to get data organized and prevent messy file uploads. It is a complicated problem, and it will require dedicated work of vendors to make it right. Do you remember Apple mobile.me failure? I can imagine similar situation happens with any CAD cloud synchronization features.

What is my conclusion? Cloud is a powerful technology. Engineers, architects and other CAD users are sensitive to information. The ability of cloud services to create a mess can put a potential of cloud services at risk. CAD vendors need to bring a solution that will allow to cloud CAD file storage to become manageable and reliable. Otherwise, we are at risk to say – "It is not a technology stupid". Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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Open Source, Cloud Trap and Product Lifecycle Data Control

April 21, 2012

The discussion around the cloud is heating up. At the time, the competition gets stronger, the debate around the cloud trap is taking to the next level. It is not unusual these days to see cloud propaganda coming from the companies beating their future on the success of the cloud as well as opposite voices of people warning about the potential disaster that can happen as a result of your IP and data moving to remotely located storage.

So, who is around to support the cloud?

The number of companies supporting cloud strategies in CAD / PLM space is growing. I decided to bring two examples here – Arena and Autodesk. Arena is a long-time SaaS / cloud player. Autodesk just jumped into the cloud bandwagon few months ago.

Arena, well-known cloud / SaaS supported just came with the newproducts – PartList, BOMControl and PDXViewer. You can read Arena announcement here. This is how Arena customers differentiate cloud and web solution from Arena: Because the architecture is web-based, we avoid any IT or administrator investment. This has allowed us to maintain a lean organization and focus on what we do best—product development.

Autodesk PLM 360, product I discussed intensively over the past few months also actively presenting the advantages of cloud solution. Autodesk highlights the value proposition of their solution. Here is the quote of Buzz Kross presenting Autodesk PLM 360 few weeks ago during the Autodesk media summit in San Francisco: "There’s 140 pre-installed apps for PLM 360… Autodesk PLM 360 is 1/20th of the costs of the traditional PLM systems. The cost benefits users get is pretty phenomenal.”

And who is on the other side of the fence to convince us the cloud is a bad thing?

Richard Stallman, long time advocate of open source, founder of the Free Software Foundation and creator of the computer operating system GNU, warns everybody about the potential "cloud trap". Here is the passage from UK Gardianpost four years ago: Web-based programs like Google’s Gmail will force people to buy into locked, proprietary systems that will cost more and more over time, according to the free software campaigner.

According to Stallman, customer who will follow cloud path will lose control over their destiny. All their IP will be moved to the cloud and eventually lost. According to Stallman, software should be open and available for free. Here is the passage from Stallman’s article:

"One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control," he said. "It’s just as bad as using a proprietary program. Do your own computing on your own computer with your copy of a freedom-respecting program. If you use a proprietary program or somebody else’s web server, you’re defenceless. You’re putty in the hands of whoever developed that software."

Dave Ault on his SolidEdging blog musing about the potential danger of the cloud. In his last post Cloud Fraud for you, BIG Shopping Cart for Chinese pickup up to the topic of the unsuccessful cloud demo experiences some companies had during COFES 2012 and continue with his arguments about potential security risks of the cloud solutions. Here is the passage, I especially like mixing Iran nuclear danger and potential role of the cloud in the future atomic apocalypses (I liked usage of my name in the context):

….let us look at the situation with Iran and their nuke program. There are some governments that do not like the idea of nutty jihad kook muslim’s running around with nuke’s who think they are going to get a lot of virgins in Heaven if they use them. So they just whip up this little program called Stuxnet and deliver it to the kook’s. Now the kook nuke sites are pretty high security I suppose so the best way to deliver your package would be the web I should think. The rest is history. All major companies spend a lot of time and money on R&D. All major companies according to Mr Clark give it away as a result of putting their stuff in places where the web can access this. OK you cloud guys, Oleg and the rest, prove this man wrong. Where is your proof of security?

Well, here is my take on the debates around the cloud in the context of CAD / PLM.

I think the key question in the story is about who is controlling product lifecycle data. Today, the control is in hands of corporate ITs and software providers selling applications that can handle product data. The idea of ownership is sensitive. I’ve heard about companies that backup whole virtual computer systems to prove they can read and access data in the future. At the same time, we all know about a potential theft of data using human factor in the companies (you don’t need to put your data on the cloud to be copied to USB sticks and portable hard drives ).

Some of the cloud vendors made their case strong by providing reliable services and making their software solution very affordable. Google, Amazon, Salesforce.com – this is a short list of cloud companies. The outage of glitches in cloud software usually creates a lot of turbulence in online media. However, the main reason for that is our life dependencies on these services (gmail and hotmail are one of the best examples).

What is my conclusion today? I think we are in the early beginning of cloud hype-cycle. Cloud certainly has a potential to provide reliable and affordable solutions. However, cloud companies need to take a responsibility to be open and work on the improvements in the level of security and reliability. In case of product lifecycle management, I’d be focusing on how to develop and support mechanism for data openness and data portability. It will create another level of security for people using cloud solution and reduce criticism from the side of "anti-cloud pundits". I’m looking forward to have an open discussion. Just my thoughts…

Please speak your mind and respect other people during the discussion.

Best, Oleg

picture credit David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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PLM: Data, Search and Future User Experience

April 4, 2012

Disclosure: As a co-founder of Inforbix, I understand that my opinion about PLM Data and Search can be unintentionally biased. Nevertheless, I believe the topic itself is very important, so I decided to share my thoughts anyway.

PLM Data. A lot of data. You are probably familiar with that. The amount of data is growing. I can say the same about the complexity of the products and product development processes. It creates significant challenges for everybody in the company – designers, engineers, manufacturing, marketing, sales and support. How to overcome the level of complexity and provide customers with easy and intuitive tools? This is one of the challenges I mentioned in my presentation few months ago during AU 2011.

In this article which is going to be unusually long, I’d like to explore trends and show examples of applications specifically focusing on user experience.

TeamCenter Active Workspace

Siemens just released videos and information about so-called TeamCenter Active Workspace. Per my understanding Active Workspace is a first module to implement so-called HD-PLM vision Siemens PLM presented last year. I caught the initial info about Active Workspace was in October 2011. I captured it in my Inforbix blog. The discussion was started on twitter by @dorasmith. In addition, you might be interested to read an early review done by Kenneth Wong of Desktop Engineering. The short definition of Active Workspace was like this “Active Workspace is like Internet search, simplifying PLM complexity”. I was listening to the following video by Chuck Grindstaff of Siemens PLM talking about Active Workspace.

Finally it came to the release. In the following video, you can see a first review of the product.

I find user experience quite comprehensive. In my view, it is clear simplification compared to a traditional PLM environment. According to my understanding Active Workspace is running on top of TeamCenter platform (as a module). So, where it provides a clear user experience simplification, customers still needs to take care of IT, installation and implementation cost.

Dassault System 3DExperience and Exalead SBA

DS has a concern about user experience too. DS started 3DLive product about 5 years ago as an innovative way to collaborate, visualize and navigate through product information. These days, DS is presenting something they call 3D Experience platform that allows people to experience real product in a virtual environment. According to Dassault, it will change the way innovators innovate with consumers. You can see a visionary video below. This is still a vision, in my view.

3D Experience platform contains many elements supported by other DS products. One of them, Exalead is a platform for Search Based Applications. DS acquired Exalead two years ago. Since that time, I’ve heard lots of talks about Exalead as a platform. According to Dassault, Exalead platform and applications can be embedded into other applications or used a platform for building new apps. Known as “French Google”, Exalead was a company founded back in the beginning of 2000 with some core roots in Alta Vista search platform. In my view, Exalead is a powerful toolkit. With all power it comes with, Exalead is a very generic and not related to PLM. In the video below, I found an application developed by DS partner – NovaQuest, which can be positioned as much as close as possible to PLM.

Autodesk PLM 360

The story of Autodesk PLM 360 is just in a very early beginning. Autodesk is presenting PLM 360 as a major breakthrough into changing the way people work in PLM including delivery and implementation (Instant On the cloud) and ending up with a user experience. I presented some of my thoughts about PLM 360 on my blog before. Navigate to the following link to read more. From the standpoint of user experience, PLM 360 is completely browser-based (except of Workflow designer)

It also provides some interesting capabilities for product information navigation.

Opposite to Siemens PLM and Dassault, PLM 360 is running in the cloud. User interface is a strong point of PLM360. It is also very flexible and customizable. At the same time, because of the cloud, connection with the data in the company, remains one of the weak points and the gap that Autodesk needs to cover.

PTC, Windchill and SharePoint

The last version of Windchill product put a lot of focus on the user experience. PTC mentioned it many times in their presentations. You can see a video of Windchill 10 demonstrating all usability enhancements. The core concept of Windchill UI is to combine the best desktop experience with the best web experience. How successful is that? Take a look on the video and tell me, please.

On the side of search, PTC relies on SharePoint infrastructure heavily. In the following video, you can see how PTC mixing SharePoint search with Windchill products.

Inforbix Product Data Applications

The big idea of Inforbix is to change the way how people in manufacturing company can access product data located in disparate locations (file vaults, local computer drives, database, PDM/PLM applications and other sources). Inforbix doesn’t require you to migrate data into a single database. Inforbix runs from the cloud (private or public), scans product data and helps you to search, find connected elements and create different reports and visualization. Learn more here. User experience plays one of the central roles in Inforbix. The following video shows Inforbix Search user experience that helps you navigate and discover product data.

This video presents Inforbix Tables user experience helping you to slice and dice data in virtual reports.

What is my conclusion? User experience is very important these days. What we learned from the internet and mobile space, one “extra click” can kill your product. The new motto – “don’t make me think” can be easy applied as the most important requirements nowadays. The idea of user experience started to proliferate to enterprise space. PLM companies are clearly interested how to make improvements and create new generation of tools, which will not look like ’95 anymore. Just my thoughts….

Best, Oleg

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Cloud PLM and “Made in Germany” Sticker…

April 3, 2012

Few weeks ago, back to my trip to Munich PLM Innovation Congress, I published post - Will Europe Adopt Cloud PLM? Navigate back to my article to listen to the speech by Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda, announcing a European Cloud Partnership help cloud computing through public procurement. Since that time, I started to follow “European cloud” story more closely. The following article caught my attention - Cloud computing ‘made in Germany’ stirs debate at CeBIT. Take five minutes of your time and read this article. It sounds like German IT and specifically Deutsche Telecom is playing an interesting cloud game. Security is a strong point they want to leverage. Here is an interesting passage:

The head of the German communications giant, Rene Obermann, told visitors to the CeBIT this year that “the ‘German Cloud’ could present a competitive advantage for us.”. Having lived through first a Nazi dictatorship, then a Communist one, Germans are especially sensitive when it comes to data protection and Deutsche Telekom hopes to leverage this to its advantage. “In Germany, the data protection laws are very strict. But several operators do not come from Germany and do not adhere to these standards,” said Obermann. He is aiming at the 3.6 million prosperous German small and medium sized firms who have not yet taken the leap to storing their data using cloud computing. Only 12 percent have done so. “It’s an enormous potential,” said Obermann, vaunting the advantage of his firm’s 30 giant servers or “datacenters” across Germany.

It made me think about future cloud PLM potential of German market. Two major CAD / PLM companies are permanent residents in EU - Dassault Systems and Siemens PLM. Dassault has significant cloud ambitions. Earlier last year, during DSCC 2011 event in Las Vegas, Bernard Charles mentioned that DS spent about $2B to develop the best in-class cloud online PLM platform. At the same time, Siemens PLM so far didn’t show up any cloud development and plans. All this happens in parallel with last development of Autodesk PLM 360 and Autodesk’s ambitions to establish themselves as a “Salesforce.com of PLM”.

What is my conclusion? I think, we are in the early beginning of cloud PLM race. As we’ve seen in consumer web, mobile, search and social networking, competitors will be using various tools to protect their interest and establish a better market position for their cloud products. Will “Made in German” sticker become one of them? Time will show. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

picture credit domdeen / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Autodesk, PLM 360, Marketing and Zero Click Solutions

March 28, 2012

I’m attending Autodesk press and media summit yesterday and today in Autodesk San Francisco office. Autodesk invited about 100 journalists and bloggers to share information about the new Autodesk product release. This is also an opportunity to speak to Autodesk executives – Carl Bass, Buzz Kross and others. Autodesk puts a lot of energy and focus behind their newborn PLM baby and to me, it was a chance to have a talk to people responsible for PLM 360 product – Brian Roepke and others.

Autodesk and Cloud

Autodesk is deeply committed to the cloud. It is going much beyond PLM, but reflected in everything Autodesk is doing these days. It starts from giving 3GB-free cloud space for AutoCAD users and continue to all other products, including mobile applications and more. Carl Bass has a huge believe in the cloud. As you can see below, he is emotional and he is on twitter…

PLM 360 – Marketing View

Buzz Kross presented PLM 360 during the main briefing session. After early preview during AU 360, to me, it was a first opportunity to see PLM 360 marketing machine in action.

Below you can slides presented by Buzz Kross. Autodesk defines PLM 360 in three steps – 1/ bring ALL aspects of lifecycle together, 2/ support business models and processes, 3/ ease of adoption, implementation and support. As marketing messages they are not new in PLM world. The difference Autodesk brings to the table is how PLM 360 will be delivered via the cloud and this is what makes PLM 360 different.

You can see how Autodesk presents PLM 360 differentiations. The main characteristics – instant on, access, subscription based are clearly belonged to the cloud. Some of them like "insanely configurable" sounds as too much marketing to me and hardly can be quantified. I believe "Highly Current User Experience" is sort of typo. I have no idea about what is that.

Integration story. The ability to bring right data to PLM 360 is important. It means PLM 360 needs to find the way to access data coming from existing CAD files, PDM systems and other company data source. Buzz presented the following slide in that context. In my view, Autodesk understands the importance of data integration with PLM 360. So, I hope Autodesk will bring more clarity to this space soon.

Prices and cost of ownership. Buzz Kross presented the following cost comparison based on calculation of a PLM deployment of 200 seats and five basic modules. It looks cheaper upfront. However, as I learned during my PLM innovation panel discussion last months, when it comes to pricing, devil is in details. Customers will drill down to functionality to understand if a comparison of PLM 360 to other PLM systems is valid and compares right features, functional and system capabilities.

Customer Workshop and Q&A

During afternoon workshops I have an opportunity to attend demonstrations made by PLM 360 "early adopters". It was a place where marketing messages down to the reality. Three Autodesk customers presented what they did with PLM 360 so far. Few observations I’ve made – 1/ PLM 360 as a tool is simple to use; 2/ cloud helps to customers to start fast and removes all IT complexity; 3/ the discussion customers are having around PLM 360 is no different from the discussion you may have around Enovia, TeamCenter or Windchill. Below few pictures, so you can get a feeling of the conversation.

What is my conclusion? I learned new marketing buzz from Autodesk yesterday – ‘zero click solution’. It is a funny word. I’m not sure I want an application to make clicks and do something without my involvement. However, jokes aside, user experience is extremely important. From what I’ve seen in PLM 360 users – you can start easy and fast. The tool is user friendly. So, my conclusion -PLM 360 has a potential. There are many other issues related to PLM 360 that needs to be solved and require improvements. Here is my list of visible PLM 360 gaps today: 1/ integration with data in the company (files, PDM and other systems), 2/ dynamic workflows, 3/ usability of administration tools like workflow designer and data modeling. The next step will be to analyze gaps identified by customers during first experiments and deployment. I believe Autodesk has enough money and resource to solve these problems. Time will show. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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My first take on Autodesk PLM 360 system and technology

March 24, 2012

Autodesk PLM 360 is widely announced and promoted “new cloud alternative” from Autodesk to disrupt PLM market. After initial announcement, back few weeks ago, press, media and bloggers gave significant focus to PLM 360 products. If you want to catch up a bit on articles, I’d recommend you few stories – Sharing our PLM 360 experiencesby Jim Brown of Tech-Clarity, Autodesk announced pricing for PLM 360 offerings by Develop 3D, Live from AU. Autodesk and PLM. Strap your boots, it is coming by Al Dean of Develop 3D, The devil must be cold: Autodesk launches PLM product Nexus by Chad Jackson of Lifecycle Insightand Autodesk PLM 360: Insanely Configurable? by Monica Schnitger. I also had a chance to write few articles after PLM 360 release. Navigate to the following link to read my article - Autodesk, Cloud and PLM for $19.95. That was my conclusion few weeks ago just after the announcement:

Autodesk made a significant turnaround from rejecting PLM to claiming Autodesk PLM revolution to come to every manufacturing company. If I think Darwinian, it can be a confirmation of the Autodesk ability to adopt to the reality of today’s world. One of the conclusions I’ve made last week during PLM Innovation conference in Munich – PLM is strategic now. Autodesk is claiming PLM revolution and emphasizing “technology” as one of the enabling factors. It means technologies behind Autodesk PLM 360 is what made Autodesk PLM possible. I’m looking forward to seeing technological whitepaper about Autodesk PLM 360 with some details going beyond marketing buzzwords. Time will show what Autodesk is serving us in PLM cloud box.

Autodesk PLM 360 Hands On

Autodesk provided me an access to Autodesk PLM 360. My PLM 360 tenant runs on Autodesk QA servers. I discover that later. It was good to know and helpful to justify my impression about performance and availability. After doing some work during the past 3 weeks, this article is an attempt to summarize my initial take on what I think about PLM 360, how it is different from other PLM systems on the market and talk as much as I can about PLM 360 architecture and technology.

General Concept and Strategy

Let me talk how I understood Autodesk concepts and strategy with regards to PLM 360. Autodesk step in PLM game after long time ignorance of PLM. The key point made by Carl Bass during AU was – now we have right technology to solve problems of manufacturers. The bold hint was that technologies and PLM products available from competitors cannot do so. Autodesk conceptual differentiation is the cloud. At the same time, Autodesk has their own PDM product – Autodesk Vault PDM. So, Autodesk is creating a strategy of how to use PDM on premises and PLM on the cloud. In my view, this strategy is interesting and can hold real implementations beyond presentation slides. However, the weak point of this strategy will be the ability of Autodesk PLM to provide an effective integration solution and technology. Autodesk will have to balance between existing PDM product and development of PLM on the cloud which will obviously bring overlaps and lots of questions. One of the examples is about Bill of Materials. My initial take on this problem is here – Cloud PLM and Bill of Material Question. Here is my short graphical explanation of what is the concept of Autodesk PLM:

Data Architecture

Data model is one of the key elements of any PLM system. With the absence of technical information from Autodesk, here is my take on PLM 360 data architecture. PLM 360 is not much different from all other PLM systems. It most probably using SQL-compliant database as a foundation of data architecture. On top of that, there is an object abstraction layer you can use. If you’re familiar with few other PLM/PDM systems, it won’t take you much time to get to PLM 360 model. The core data modeling abstraction concept is “workspace”.

Workspace is defined as a set of attributes with related information and specific behavior. In that sense, it is not different from Object / Class / Business object abstractions used by other PLM developed back in 1990-2000s. I discovered rigidity in some definitions like not ability to extend the amount of tabs in the workspace and some others issues. This leads me to some assumptions related to RDBMS modeling behind, but I don’t see it as something critical.

User Experience

The overal user experience of PLM 360 is nice. The web application has nicely designed elements of UI. It looks a little outdated if you think about modern UI experience circal 2010. You can take a look on the following two screenshots that basically show you the majority of UI experiences.

In addition to that, I found few elements of user interface with original and interesting decisions. One of them, I want to mention is the interface defining attributes of the workspace.

Administration

Overal PLM 360 can be configured and administered via web user interface. No local utilities needed. Please see screenshots above, I used to explain the idea of workspace. In addition to that, you have quite extensive set of administration for scripting and additional configurations.

The only exception from this rule is a workflow designer – a rich application and requires Java to run. I’d say, this kind of reduces the flexibility of process management that can be done by PLM 360.

Architecture and Technology

Autodesk is quite secretive with everything that related to sharing of technological and architecture information about how the system is built. They are taking full responsibility on hosted cloud servers. I don’t have a confirmed information what company is hosting PLM 360 for Autodesk. According to Graphic Speak publication, PLM 360 is hosted on dedicated servers. You can try to make some conclusion about multitenancy. On the picture below, I created PLM 360 pseudo architectural diagram. The picture I draw based on my “educational guess” and “detective actions” :) . PLM 360 has near to traditional enterprise architecture contains SQL-compliant database, server code and web frontend.

What is my conclusion? I have a positive impression about PLM 360. It is stable, and I could perform my research experiments as well as some customization and development work. The overall maturity of the system even higher than I would expect from the system developed from scratch (as it was mentioned by Randal Newton in his article) – Autodesk PLM 360 is the first PLM product written from scratch for contemporary cloud technology. Autodesk is betting it will be a hit with companies of all sizes. At the same time, I didn’t find special novelty in the data-management paradigm. Also, I didn’t find any confirmation about flexibility and scalability of the system going beyond traditional PLM solutions (in the case systems like Enovia, Aras, etc. will be hosted on the cloud). The concepts of integration of PLM 360 are not clear and provide a concern with regards how PLM 360 can be embedded into overall company IT strategy. With all that, I found my user experience quite enjoyable, and I liked how PLM 360 performed tasks. These are just my thoughts… I’ll continue my experience with PLM 360 and hope to come with more articles.

Best, Oleg

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Autodesk, Cloud and PLM for $19.95…

March 1, 2012

BAM…BAM…BAM… Finally, it happened. Autodesk PLM 360 is here. It was a long run for Autodesk to converge from the story of “Anti-PLM rap” to “PLM for everyone“. Yesterday, I was watching a webcast session from Autodesk Manufacturing HQ in Lake Oswego, OR. Autodesk’s approach to PLM is to make it available to everyone from the cloud on any device. According to Autodesk, PLM revolution is finally here:

My historical record about PLM and Autodesk

PLM and Autodesk was a popular theme on my blog for the last 2 years. First time was writing about that was two years ago in January 2010. Navigate to my post PLM for individuals – integrated or die? My bet two years ago was that Autodesk will try to leverage internet technologies to delivery a different solution. I thought, Autodesk would be trying to make PLM different. Another post – Autodesk, Data Management and Why PLM question. Read the following passage from my past back in 2010:

Autodesk is going on a very narrow bridge and trying to connect customer’s demands to have a rich scope of data management functions and integration with design tools like Autodesk Inventor. At the same time, Autodesk is trying to avoid getting into positioning data management as a “PLM strategy”.

Another post about Autodesk and PLM (one year ago) – Autodesk: from PDM to MLP? This is what I wrote in my conclusion:

I think the game around enterprise data becomes more important than before. Data is a key asset in a manufacturing company and Autodesk customers can put their demands very high. These demands are moving Autodesk Vault and other data-management management products towards additional functionality. Process oriented workflow is one of the most remarkable I noticed in Autodesk Vault 2012. To increase functionality and keep the low level of complexity for Autodesk product will be the next challenge for Autodesk engineers and product managers.

Autodesk PLM and Salesforce.com

So, Autodesk is betting on the cloud and wants to repeat Salesforce.com success to deliver the variety of PLM apps for any purposes. To see what apps Autodesk offers for the moment, navigate your browser to the following link.

Application is probably a key thing to make it successful. Randal Newton of GraphicSpeak in his article Autodesk launches cloud-based PLM yesterday; only time will show if Autodesk will be able to deploy PLM applications to a diverse set of companies. Here is my favorite passage:

We expect Autodesk to brag in a few weeks about how many companies have downloaded Autodesk 360. The promise of scalable, affordable PLM is just too alluring to ignore. It won’t be the simplicity or the cloud-based mechanics of Autodesk PLM 360 that make it a hit, however, but the ability of the apps. Only time will tell if Autodesk has done its homework well, as companies of all sizes give it a pilot deployment.

Is there PLM for $19.95?

One of the things mentioned by Autodesk was about to make PLM affordable for everyone. During the webcast yesterday, Autodesk announced that first 3 users are free. However, looking on the pricing model, it is not obvious. The starting price is $25 per user per month. It also looks expensive compared to Salesforce.com pricing model. Again, it is hard to compare functionality, but there is no PLM for $19.95 available yet…

My experience with Autodesk PLM

Autodesk provided me an account to use Autodesk PLM almost after autodeskpm360 website became open. It is still too early to say something specific about what is my opinion. I had some initial trouble to log in, but it was resolved almost instantly. Rob Cohee sent me correct credentials to login. You can see my home screen of Autodesk PLM 360:

What is my conclusion? Autodesk made a significant turnaround from rejecting PLM to claiming Autodesk PLM revolution to come to every manufacturing company. If I think Darwinian, it can be a confirmation of the Autodesk ability to adopt to the reality of today’s world. One of the conclusions I’ve made last week during PLM Innovation conference in Munich – PLM is strategic now. Autodesk is claiming PLM revolution and emphasizing “technology” as one of the enabling factors. It means technologies behind Autodesk PLM 360 is what made Autodesk PLM possible. I’m looking forward to seeing technological whitepaper about Autodesk PLM 360 with some details going beyond marketing buzzwords. Time will show what Autodesk is serving us in PLM cloud box.

Best, Oleg

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PLM Perfect Storm 2012

February 28, 2012

I’ve been listening to Marc Halpern‘s presentation Executing PLM Strategy in a Disruptive Business Climate last week during PLM Innovation 2012 Congress in Munich. I found PLM Market Dynamics slide very interesting. However, let me speak about Gartner Magic Quadrants before. Gartner has a long history of Magic Quadrants (MQ) research methodology. For some unknown to me reasons Gartner didn’t publish MQ related to PLM during the last few years. The last one I found takes us back to 2007. What is very interesting is that this MQ doesn’t include any vendors in the quadrants of niche players, visionaries and challengers.

Gartner PLM Magic Quadrant 2007

PLM Market in 2012 is different from Gartner’s MQ circa 2007. Unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to discuss it with Marc Halpern in Munich. I’m sure will do it soon. So, the slide Marc presented last week in Munich is below.

This diagram made me think about a very interesting situation we have today in the PLM market. Here are some of my thoughts.

Big PLM money – is it forever?

Top 3 CAD / PLM vendors are making good money these days. We have seen all financial reports went out during the past few weeks. At the same time, PLM vendors’ reliance on large customers becomes very clear to me. Dassault, Siemens and PTC were focused on the convergence of platforms and unification of portfolios. The examples of these activities areTeamCenter Unified, Dassault V6 and PTC Creo. In my view, all major PLM vendors failed to deliver scalable PLM solution for mid-range manufacturing companies and supply chain. This is a contradiction to the dynamics of manufacturing business these days. Manufacturing becomes more distributed and diverse and we see a larger number of small and lean manufacturing companies replacing large behemoths of the past. These companies are very concerned how to build lean and efficient product development practices. And from the standpoint of software, manufacturing companies are looking for a modern approach to PLM.

Large PLM vendors and Small Manufacturing companies

Despite the promises made by Dassault, Siemens and PTC, they didn’t deliver any PLM product to the market of small manufacturing companies. Dassault SolidWorks failed to deliver a full range of SolidWorks Enovia V6 based products,SolidWorks n!Fuze introduced last year was not very successful. During SoldiWorks World 2012 two weeks ago, SolidWorks was talking about n!Fuze V2 to be delivered later this year. PTC shutdown their Windchill ProductPointproduct. Siemens didn’t make any new product delivery in this segment of market for the last 2-3 years.

Autodesk and New PLM

The appearance of the Autodesk in the market of PLM was almost predicted. However, it wasn’t clear what path to PLM Autodesk will take. The development of consumer and web technologies created the situation when PLM on the cloud can be possible. I’m curious to see how Autodesk will keep cloud / on-premises balance in their way towards what I define asfinal step of cloud strategies. There are lots of challenges Autodesk can face before Autodesk PLM 360 becomes “salesforce.com of PLM world”. I’m going to attend Autodesk Media Summit later this month in San-Francisco and looking forward to hearing more about it from Carl Bass.

PLM Perfect Storm

You are probably familiar with the definition of “perfect storm“. Reading from wikipedia  ”perfect storm” is an expression that describes an event where a rare combination of circumstances will aggravate a situation drastically. The term is also used to describe an actual phemonenon that happens to occur in such a confluence, resulting in an event of unusual magnitude.

Two arrows on Gartner’s picture between Dassault, Siemens, PTC and Autodesk will form a situation of perfect storm. Today, no company claim they have a guarantied recipe of how to success with PLM at that place.

What is my conclusion? It is an interesting time to be in the PLM market these days. As I wrote in my recent blog -SolidWorks community and opportunity for PLM, there is a significant opportunity to deliver PLM solution to the white space market these days. Gartner’s PLM market dynamics slide is highlighting the same opportunity. It is clearly a perfect storm. Large PLM companies have a lot of money to play the future PLM game. They have a lot to win as well as to lose, in case something will go wrong. Who will take the best “stormy seat” in this game? An interesting question to ask. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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