Dassault: 3D Experience, V6 and Cloud

March 11, 2012

Few weeks ago, during SolidWorks World 2012, Bernard Charles, President and CEO of Dassault System announced 3D Experience. I posted about it on my blog before. You can navigate to the following link to read more about it – V6, 3D Experience and "after PLM" party. If you are following me on twitter, you noticed I’ve been visited Dassault System office in Waltham, MA yesterday. There is an advantage to be located close to PLM highway in Boston. So, when visiting DS office for some business meetings, I used this opportunity to ask people about 3D Experience, V6 and cloud. Here are few thoughts based on my discovery, conversations with DS people and customers about 3D Experience and "after PLM".

3D Experience and Consumer Behavior

Bernard Charles is clearly the best person to listen about 3D Experience. Josh Mings of SolidSmack interviewed Bernard Charles just few weeks ago during SolidWorks World 2012. I recommend you to watch it over the weekend on HD screen in a "couch mode". I’m sure you will learn a lot and also will have fun.

Think about software, I can how world is moving towards "experience" from the old paradigm of "function". One of the key elements, in my view is so called "consumer behavior". Take a look on the slide from my presentation during PLM Innovation conference 2 weeks ago in Munich.

Consumer behavior is what going to drive next wave of customer adoption. PLM was (and still is) long time "function-oriented" software. The shift towards "processes" PLM companies tried to accomplish brought some success, but mostly in large companies. The future PLM adoption is dependent on a new Gen-Y type of people and new software. The focus is how to get a job done, similar to how iPhone app can give you direction or order a table in the restaurant.

V6 platform

To create V6 platform was a big deal for DS. Similar to what happened at Siemens PLM with TeamCenter Unified and some other PLM companies. It was about a single platform that was required to unify everything at DS. Thinking about some similarities of ERP world, it was like SAP R/2/3 platform or Oracle Fusion (still debatable how efficient Oracle Fusion is). So, DS made a compromises learning things from various versions of Enovia, MatrixOne and SmarTeam to create a new platform called V6.

The idea of CATIA / V6 connection was about how to create brand new immesrive behavior and solve some old problems in Enovia / Catia integration. Customers and industry watchers took a "bundle" behavior as something dominant. In general, my feeling that DS failed to deliver a positive message with CATIA V6 empowered by Enovia V6, even if this software have a lot of powerful characteristics and functions.

Cloud and V6

Back in November 2011, during DSCC 2011, Bernard Charles announced that DS spent 2B to create the best cloud online (PLM?) platform in the world. I don’t remember if Bernard mentioned "PLM" in that context, but my assumption is that DS V6 platform is indeed PLM platform. So, it is a cloud. Thinking about "anti-cloud PLM rap" I posted few days ago, I want to understand better what makes V6 cloud. If DS assumption about how run Enovia v6 on hosted servers is about cloud, we still have some lessons to learn. Watch my blog next week for more discussions about cloud and multi-tenancy, which is one of the important characteristics that can take PLM cost down.

What is my conclusion? If you had a chance to read about Stanislavski – a Russian actor and theatre director, you’re probably familiar with his famous statement "theater begins at the coat-check-stand". Take a look on the pictures I captured during my visit to DS office, and you will see parallels.

3D Experience starts at a front door to DS Office. Some people can say it meaningless, but I would disagree. This is a place where change begins. The biggest problem is how to make it happen. Few months ago, I presented the slide above during AU 2011 in Las Vegas.

Will future PLM experience will be 3D Experience? Time will show. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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3D, Games and Product Development

January 27, 2011

Almost two years ago, I published the following post – Virtual World: Where is the boarder between game and PLM software? Gaming technology is developing very fast. Today’s games open lots of opportunities to improve existing design and engineering software, as well as to develop a new class of application. This week, during SolidWorks World 2011 in San Antonio, Dassault and SolidWorks presented a new product – Post3D, part of 3DVia brand portfolio.

The idea of this application is to allow multiple users to participate in a product review in a virtual way. You can take a brief look on what Dassault means by that on the following video:

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Virtual Collaboration – Community and Game

I found the idea of Post3D inspiring. There are few straightforward issues with Post3D – the ability to load 3D models and review them. My hunch, there is something beyond that. The main point is the ability to communicate in a different way. In addition such type of software can release product from 3D CAD boundaries. By using game-like technologies, in the future, you’ll be able to share and use 3D data beyond the point of creation in CAD system. The ability to interact in 3D is one of the key aspects in a vision of Dassault’s CEO Bernard Charles. In the next longer video, you can see Dassault’s Charles personally demonstrating the new virtual showroom together with his colleagues during SolidWorks world.

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What is my conclusion? I can see Game Technologies as a clear trend in a future of design and product development. Games develop a new way to interact. When I watch my kids playing Kinect, I can see a huge potential Gaming technology will bring later into PLM space. However, the learning curve can be tough for non-GenY folks. It will be interesting to see the adoption curve of such visionary tools. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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Microsoft in the PLM Spotlight

November 15, 2010

Last week in Orlando, I had a chance to attend Microsoft’s presentation during DSCC2010 keynote presentation. Microsoft’s trajectory is interesting. Think about last few weeks of news – Steve Balmer sells stocks worth a billion to save on taxes, Ray Ozzie exits his CSA role at Microsoft.

Role-Based, OWPX and Cloud-y Services

The following two pictures from Microsoft presentation made me think about what will drive Microsoft strategy in the organization. Role-based? OWPX. You can see it stands for Outlook, Word, PowerPoint and Excel. These individual apps are relying on Application Integration and Communication.

The next picture adds clouds on top of 200-like enterprise architecture.

Microsoft stated during the presentation – “Microsoft- IT as a service”. What does it mean? To move OWPX to the cloud? Start owning SharePoint and other Microsoft servers and sell them as a service?

Collaboration Everywhere and Technology?

Another interesting spot in Microsoft presentation is a notion of collaboration. It states – Collaboration Everywhere. It connects all silos of PLM, ERP, SCM, CRM, MES into a single box. I have a hard time to understand what does it mean. From the technological notes on the side of the slide I can learn the following – business process integration, composite apps and integrating data with analytics. For me, it means lots of consultancy hours on top of Microsoft servers to make it work. All – data, processes, applications, etc. are different. Microsoft sells individual pieces. What is missing, in my view, on these pictures is experiences.

DS V6 Organic Architecture

I found PLM experience in Bernard Charles keynote presentation about V6. The slide about Organic architecture put all enterprise architectures in a dust. V6 Organic Architecture sells Lifelike user experience. It sounds very Apple-minded. Apple is focused on experience and cool devices. Mr. Charles was focused on explaining how DS architecture will be focused on delivery a very unique experience to customers. It can be an interesting turn.

What is my conclusion? Microsoft sells servers to the enterprise. Big servers. Lots of servers. OWPX. Is it a strategy? In my view, this is Microsoft’s enterprise lock-in. On the very bottom level, PLM functions depend on Microsoft Servers. Most of PLM boxes run on Windows machines. And it deeply connected on Office / Excel. However, future belongs to experience – the number of Apple devices on DSCC2010 was bigger than ever before.

Just my thoughts..

Best, Oleg

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