Cloud PLM and the Old Enterprise Trap

May 16, 2013

Enterprise software is a fascinating place these days. It comes in a different angles and perspective. The disruption of consumer technologies, cloud, BYOD and many other factors. We can see the influence coming from both technological and business factors. Few months ago, I posted – PLM, Viral Sales and Enterprise Old Schoolers. While enterprise sales is still a tricky game, lots of thing are going to change, in my view. The following webinar invitation just landed in my email box this morning – Cloud ERP, Myths, Reality and the Old ERP trap. Jim Brown is well known as an analyst in engineering, manufacturing and enterprise domains. He is also my long time blogging buddy and co-starring at Tech4PD Show. I hope to attend webinar tomorrow (sponsored by Plex system). I found the following passage from webinar introduction interesting:

"…how cloud ERP helps overcome financial and IT resource constraints that keep companies stuck on outdated ERP systems that don’t provide the information they need to make good, timely business decisions…"

Moving on, I found the following part of webinar promotion resonating with the way any cloud enterprise system (PLM included) can be introduced and adopted in enterprise organization. In general, I can see companies are trapped in existing enterprise systems. On average, any company invested millions of dollars implementing ERP, CRP and PLM systems. The following steps clearly can show a path how to get out of this "enterprise trap". Read the following bullets and let me know if it makes sense to me.

  • Understand cloud myths and realities.
  • Overcome real and imagined financial obstacles to better systems.
  • Break IT resource barriers.
  • Rely on agile, speedy, flexible solutions that are accessible from anywhere 24/7.
  • Improve visibility across your entire enterprise.
  • Hear real-life success stories from manufacturers who made the move to cloud ERP.

Enterprise systems are complex and required time and effort to understand and implement. This is true for enterprise CRP, ERP, PLM and other systems. At the same time, enterprises and manufacturing companies are asking these how to break the limit of existing software models and barriers. Many companies are looking for alternative models. Helping them to understand cloud technology better, can be beneficial from both sides.

What is my conclusion? Slowly, but surely, enterprise companies are coming to understanding of what role cloud systems can play in the future enterprise software eco-system. To bring unlimited resources, cut implementation cost, improve level of visibility and collaboration – this is only a short list and starting point IT will use on the way out of old enterprise trap. It will take time and resources, but we will come there. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PLM Excels and Future Downfall of Manufacturing?

May 6, 2013

no-excel-plm-300x276.jpgMicrosoft Excel. What is lovely topic to finish the weekend? It was a long time, since I didn’t blog about Excel and its potential influence to product development and manufacturing. At the time my friendly blogging buddies are warning about increasing danger coming from different cloud initiatives here and there, the real danger is coming from software used by 100% of manufacturers today. So, let me get back to MS Excel.

Over the weekend, I was reading a fascinating FORTUNE article published by CNNMoney here. Authors are blaming Excel for US’s weak economy, Europe’s growth problems and zillions of other financial problems. Here is a simple reason why it happens – people don’t know how to use Excel.

“Prominent financial blogger James Kwak calls Excel “one of the greatest, most powerful, most important software applications of all time.” But perhaps we ask too much of the program, or perhaps of our ability to cut and paste. In the past few years, Excel has been implicated in some of the biggest blunders on Wall Street and in finance in general.”

Let me get back to PLM and product development. IMHO, Excel is one of the most popular PLM system in the world. Each time PLM system fails, people are coming to Excel, which is flexible, powerful and scalable. The initial cost to use Excel is zero. It is hard to find manufacturing company that not using Microsoft Excels these days. Excel report is #1 feature requested by majority of PDM/PLM customers. I wonder how many of these customers are experiencing similar Excel skills mentioned by FORTUNE article above.

What is my conclusion? Manufacturing mistakes are less visible, compared to Wall street issues. However, if you think about hidden impact of Excel on variety of engineering and manufacturing mistakes, product cost, compliance, and many other aspects of product development, your decision can be different. Maybe it is a time find an alternative to Excel? Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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GrabCAD Workbench: First Experiments

May 3, 2013

(Updated with some modification. May 3, 2013 @9:42a)

In my yesterday post, I’ve been talking about PDM software, obvious value proposition behind PDM implementation, the fact a substantial amount of manufacturing companies are afraid of implementation PDM software as well as about how cloud software startup are trying to crack the idea of PDM and may be implement it differently. I wanted to have some hands on done and experiment with new apps on the cloud. Hardi Meybaum of GrabCAD was kind to grant me an access to Beta preview of GrabCAD Workbench.

After some confusion around multiple GrabCAD accounts (actually I have two accounts now), I succeeded to login and get to the project page (below). You can see project browser and area dedicated for file viewing. Nothing special, you can see it in many engineering software – CAD, viewers, etc.

I experimented with GrabCAD viewer. The “explode” feature is nice. So far, I get an access to SolidWorks assembly Hardi shared with me and was able to play with navigation between parts and sub assemblies.

Next thing – you can collaborate by sharing files with other users (which I did by sharing with my another gmail account – as a result a new GrabCAD account was created). The new user (account) provided me access to SolidWorks assembly with all parts and not only to a specific part I shared. This is probably a hint to GrabCAD engineers to think about security model, which will be absolutely must if you want to get your software closer to PDM functions of secured collaboration.

Another collaborative feature – pins and comments. I can put a pin in the viewer, put comments, screenshot and share it with other people. Nice collaborative feature. Also, you can put comments alongside with viewer file.

The last step in my experiments was to make a change or to upload pseudo “new version” of the assembly. The original file shared by Hardi was labeled as V1. So, I downloaded the file and change its name to something different in hope to have V2. I succeeded to upload the file, but didn’t get a preview (that was my fault of file renaming – see update below). Instead of preview I’ve got a nice feature allowing me to request a preview feature for this type of file. That was true for dwg and dwf files I tried to upload.

I’ve been working on viewer problem I faced. That was actually my fault by renaming file with wrong extension. I’ve been re-do it again and… voila, GrabCAD viewer captured it with nice message about queueing file for 3D viewing preparation, which ended with absolutely correct preview after 5-8 seconds processing.

Another interesting observation was “switch to old look” button, which gave me an access to traditional GrabCAD profile page with file access, properties and comments. Project was marked as private project – good sign of thinking about security. On the other side, it means GrabCAD workbench is a natural extension to GrabCAD website with the ability to access other projects as well.

What is my conclusion? GrabCAD Workbench is focusing on providing engineers with the tool to share CAD models and collaborate around CAD design. Because of cloud/hosted nature, it is easy to start. I found user experience nice and soft. I’ve been disappointed by absences of basic security implementation between parts and assemblies. I’m looking forward to talk to GrabCAD fellows and learn more. This is just my first impression… More to come.

Best, Oleg

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How Amazon helps cloud PLM to connect to enterprise data?

April 16, 2013

Face it, even cloud is trending and growing fast, on enterprise premise systems are representing a major part of engineering and manufacturing systems in organizations. It includes ERP, CRM, PDM, PLM systems as well as zillions of Excels and CAD files. I’ve been thinking how to optimize cloud/on-premise data co-existance. My attention was caught by the news about Amazon Storage Gateway. Amazon, in its push to draw more enterprise customers, had to make sure the Amazon Storage Gateway will run in Microsoft Hyper-v virtualized shops. Which expands the ability of Amazon to synchronize data between cloud and on premise environment.

For those of you not familiar with ASG (Amazon Storage Gateway), navigate to the following link to learn more. The AWS Storage Gateway supports two configurations:

1/ Gateway-Cached Volumes: You can store your primary data in Amazon S3, and retain your frequently accessed data locally. Gateway-Cached volumes provide substantial cost savings on primary storage, minimize the need to scale your storage on-premises, and retain low-latency access to your frequently accessed data.

2/ Gateway-Stored Volumes: In the event you need low-latency access to your entire data set, you can configure your on-premises gateway to store your primary data locally, and asynchronously back up point-in-time snapshots of this data to Amazon S3. Gateway-Stored volumes provide durable and inexpensive off-site backups that you can recover locally or from Amazon EC2 if, for example, you need replacement capacity for disaster recovery.

The two options are representing an interesting option on how enterprise data can co-exist between cloud and on-premise environments. I can see mid-size companies are doing it to optimize their file storages. Larger companies can use it for extended value chain communication.

What is my conclusion? As cloud systems will expand in organizations, the demand for hybrid environment will grow as well. Companies won’t be able to migrate enterprise data assets outside of organizations fast, therefore cloud PLM solutions that will be able to communicate and co-exist in hybrid deployments will grow. The ability to connect existing enterprise data assets and cloud apps is a key to make future cloud expansion. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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CAD, PLM and Future Cloud File Systems

April 8, 2013

Cloud is everywhere these days. It becomes a mainstream in our everyday life and it is coming to businesses and enterprises. Emails, photos, social networks, mobile apps… Cloud services and applications are destroying old paradigms and create new ones. One of the most powerful paradigm we developed for the last 20-30 years is folders and files. I’ve been discussing it in the past and want to get back to this topic again. You can navigate to few of my previous posts – PLM User Experience and The Evil of Folders and The Future of CAD without Files?

One of the most popular concepts of past 3-5 years was development of apps. The idea of Apps replacing everything got viral. Many people thought that apps are going to replace everything (including files and folders). I’ve been reading an interesting publication over the weekend – The Death Of The File System: What You Need To Know. The author is discussing the reason why folders and files systems will remain even after we move to the cloud. Here is an interesting passage.

No file system is a no-go. This is the deepest analysis I’ve found of a vision of a future in which "users simply have apps” and are not conscious of storage repositories. And it doesn’t bode well for workplace users. We may need new UX paradigms. Via JohnnyHolland: “Documents associated with them appear magically. Presto.” While this might sound like some kind of user experience utopia, I have a grave concern that eliminating a file system in this manner misses a huge audience. Us. While opening Pages to work on the family newsletter might make sense for casual home users of a computer system, it does not make sense in a professional context. In the professional world, we work on projects. Projects are composed of many different types of files. And yes, we might have the same apps open all day, but do we want to be forced to duplicate a hierarchy of information in every single application? No. Besides, “projects” are just one type of organizational scheme. As a user experience designer, I’ve seen a lot of professionals in other fields organizing a lot of stuff in a lot of different ways. So even attempts at inter-app organization around the concept of a project, such as Microsoft’s Project Center, are not effective replacements for an infinitely flexible organization scheme like simple folders.

The idea of new UX cloud paradigm emulating folders and files behavior resonates. It eliminates many problems and the biggest one – the need of customers to adopt to something new. Customers will continue to use existing paradigm and some of them even didn’t pay attention how they switch from proven file/folders environment to cloud storage.

The development of cloud platforms is going in parallel. Companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft and some others are spending billions of dollars building infrastructure transferring the data to the cloud. Google Drive, Microsoft SkyDrive, Apple iCloud – this is only a short list of services emulating cloud files/folders and allowing to us to store a conventional data (eg. files and folders) in the cloud. Navigate to the following article – Google Drive adds apps folders and customer properties for developers to learn about latest Google extension in that field.

The app data folder serves as a hidden storage space that developers can use to store configuration files and other important app data that shouldn’t be changed by the user. Files stored within an app data folder are hidden from both the user and from other apps. Only your app can see what is stored within this location. It prevents other apps from taking information from your files and also stops users from accidentally deleting core app files.

Google and other cloud infrastructure providers are making their cloud platforms fully transparent and available to store engineering data – CAD files, Excels, etc. CAD/PLM vendors are also working in the same direction. A good example – Autodesk 360 provides a convenient way to store files and other application data.

What is my conclusion? File system dead, long live "Cloud File System". I can see two potential trends related to the development of new cloud-based file systems and storage. First is related to existing applications – with the increased transparency of cloud file storage, I can see a renaissance of existing CAD applications in the cloud. It still hard to predict dynamic and interest, but I can clearly see how existing vendors will be trying to re-use it anyway. Second trend is related to establishment of new native cloud design systems (eg. Autodesk Fusion 360 or long time promised Solidworks Mechanical Conceptual). These systems will provide apps (or webapps), but will keep data (file) storage system transparrent. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PLM Cloud and Open Source Coopetition

March 25, 2013

I want to continue the theme of disruption started in my post last week. I can see two major forces that will disrupt traditional PLM approach nowadays – cloud and open source. Both have some strong position points and some weaknesses. I put some of my thoughts about cloud and open source disruption last year – PLM cloud and open source disruptive trajectories. I want to get back to this topic. I was reading TechCrunch article- Oracle Is Bleeding At The Hands Of Database Rivals. Read the article. It clearly influenced by recent Oracle financial results announcement. Nevertheless, I found some facts and opinions there very important and interesting. Here is my favorite passage:

Until this past week, the extent of Oracle’s problems were not known. But there is a cut, a slight bleeding that’s now visible. But how deep is the cut? How much is Oracle really bleeding? That’s exactly the question analysts asked in a Reuters story after the earnings results: “Data base revenue, which has been the cash machine of the company, has changed. There are now alternative databases, as well as the cloud,” said Mark Moerdler, an analyst at Bernstein Research. “That pressure is still a tiny bleed, but it is out there and the question is – is it bigger than we think it is?”

Another interesting case built around solutions and databases built on top of open source. One of them mentioned in the article is Datastax – outfit providing solutions based on open source database Casandra. Here is the quote:

Oracle reported this week that new software licenses are down two percent. And that decline is in part reflected by the adoption of NoSQL databases offered by Datastax and a variety of other services that use in-memory technology at the database layer. The reason for the drop has more to do with the enterprise acceptance of online applications more than anything else, said Datatastax CEO Billy Bosworth in an interview last week. That’s the truth. NEA Ventures Scott Sandell said to me at SXSW that CIOs are convinced to move their workloads but cloud security is still an issue. That’s where companies like Datastax enter the picture. Datastax is built on Cassandra, a high performance Apache open-source database technology with security at its core.

TechCrunch’s article made me think about influence of open source and cloud solutions in PLM market and the potential to provide solution alternatives to customers looking how to get a different PLM implementations. I can see many customers are moving to the cloud. A particular segment of customers might be interesting to find an alternative, but still struggle with the justification of their security procedures can be changed to adopt open source solutions that can provide them alternative licensing models and optimized cost. However, the most interesting is a combination of both approaches. Even if open source and cloud might sounds as orthogonal approach, business combination can be interesting.

What is my conclusion? It is an interesting time in enterprise and PLM market specifically these days. Changes are coming from all directions. Technological disruption and new business models are coming across interests of customers to find alternatives to existing PLM solutions. The primary focus of customers is flexible solution, fast ROI and reliable solution framework for the future. The coopetition of cloud and open source can play an interesting role and become a game changing factor. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PLM: Business Transformation vs. Business Pain Solving?

March 8, 2013

cloud-plm-tco.pngI’d like to provoke the discussion about PLM implementations today. I assume most of your had a chance to hear the term "business transformation". That was the way majority of PLM vendors, consulting and service companies approached PLM implementation for the last decade. In a nutshell, it means to transform business processes in a company to follow PLM strategy. Implementation of PLM products and infrastructure was part of "business transformation" process. I found a good description of what means PLM transformation in the following paper by Kalypso. Kalypso is well know service and consulting outfit – sort of "department store" in the business of PLM implementation. Their viewpoint is unique and interesting since they are partnering with the majority of PLM companies in the world (according to the following list). I found the following quote interesting:

In the past several years we have watched companies try to implement PLM solutions on a tactical basis; focusing on a single department or system function, defining the business problem narrowly, or taking a technology-replacement approach to their programs. These projects inevitably fail to deliver any significant business impact, but they are safe, small, and can “fly below the radar” of the executives. Nobody gets promoted, but nobody loses their job… Companies that adopt a strategic, “vision-driven” approach to their PLM programs are significantly outperforming those that view PLM more tactically. Specifically,there is a strong correlation between best-in-class program performance and the following actions taken by leading companies: 1/ Developing a firm vision and strategy for PLM that identifies a future state to achieve from PLM, and tie that vision back to the overall business strategy; 2/ Adopting a PLM program approach to implementing PLM, addressing the implementation of PLM as a series of related projects. 3/ Approaching the PLM implementation as a business transformation as opposed to a technology installation, recognizing the need to change behavior and business processes in addition to providing new software.

It is very solid statement. There is nothing wrong in the business of developing long term strategic programs and investing in product development innovation. There is only one problem here – the dynamic of business is different these days compared to what we had 5-10 years ago. The cost demand is different too. These days businesses are running much faster and requires speedy and flexible reaction of IT and all business systems (PLM included).

Speaking about flexibility in PLM implementation, I was reading commentary published by CIMdata yesterday – Using PLM In the Cloud to Improve Business Flexibility. You can navigate to the publication via this link. CIMdata speaks about PLM delivery via cloud actually speaking about TeamCetner and virtual cloud model. Siemens PLM recently announced the availability of TeamCenter via IaaS cloud infrastructure. I found the following passage from CIMdata commentary interesting:

Today companies are not looking to buy “PLM.” They want solutions that solve specific business “pains” for their specific industry focus. Businesses must be able to more quickly acquire and deploy PLM functionality and solutions that give them operational flexibility and improve the efficiency and the pace of product development, production and service. They need to be able to take advantage of new capabilities without having to go through lengthy installation and tailoring processes – and they need to deploy and operate these new capabilities in a cost efficient manner. Reducing the time to deploy new PLM functionality with less (or no) IT support and infrastructure costs can significantly improve operational flexibility

What is my conclusion? Flexibility and agility of PLM implementation is getting more attentions. Cloud is a perfect way to increase the flexibility of PLM deployment by providing infrastructure and tools to deliver PLM systems. The fact TeamCenter is moving towards cloud deployment just another confirmation of the fact customers are looking for alternative to existing PLM deployment models. Cost is another aspect. I don’t know if TeamCenter in the cloud is cheaper than traditionally licensed option. However, I can imagine how cloud PLM can provide cost advantage compared to existing PLM implementations. Together with flexibility it can become a deal-breaker for many manufacturing companies. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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Will PLM take an advantage of DBaaS?

February 25, 2013

Bam! New acronym to learn today. Enterprise software already created tons of them for last 2 decades. However, I will ask to excuse me today and speak about DBaaS. I’m sure you’ve heard about IaaS, SaaS, PaaS… So, what is DBaaS and why I think it we need to discuss it in the context of PLM? Generally speaking DBaaS is a kind of "cloud database". Wikipedia classified cloud databases in the following article into Virtual machine images and Database as a services (DBaaS).

The major interesting in DBaaS can be called by a single name – scale. The requirements to infrastructure is growing. The ability to keep up with this growth often can go beyond IT capacity you company may have. So, DBaaS can give you an easy way to scale up with more/less predictable cost. Specifically, when speaking about global geographical scale. Most of manufacturing companies are working today globally with suppliers, manufacturing and design facilities across the globe. To support such type of globally scaled infrastructure, can be an additional reason to move towards DBaaS option.

Second reason – cost. Similar to all other XaaS services, DBaaS can provide cost benefits by virtualization of data layer. The exact numbers, of course, will depends per case and will not work for everybody. However, I believe, there are enough companies in the niche that will find DBaaS as a cost saving factors in their database architecture.

I want to mention few specific aspects of PDM and PLM development. To provide muti-site PDM deployment is one of the most crtitical requirements these days. Many relatively inexpensive PDM solutions are struggling with such type of multi-site deployment. By moving to DBaaS, they can solve the problem of distributed deployment. Another interesting aspect of PDM/PLM deployment is flexibility. The ability to instantiate a specific schema and configuration of database is much high with DBaaS compared to traditional database deployment.

Life is not without problems. DBaaS can be bring some challenges too. One of the most significant one is flexibility and configuration of DBaaS solutions compared to traditional databases. Therefore, DBaaS can be a challenge for existing PLM applications designed for traditional SQL database. Most of problems potentially can come from customization and ability to run specific database/server side scripts and procedures.

What is my conclusion? Cloud databases or DBaaS is an interesting infrastructure option for PDM/PLM developers and IT managers. It provide ease of administration and ability to scale. It can become an important element of your future PLM infrastructure for small and large companies. If you are developing new product today, pay attention how you can save by using DBaaS. If you are IT manager, check your existing or future PLM solution about their ability to run in DBaaS configuration. Important trend. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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What Cloud CAD-PDM Hybrid Means for PLM?

February 10, 2013

To predict future is tough. Not many people are trying to do so. Especially in tech. Companies are juggling with buzzwords, powerpoints and software. At the same time, analysts are trying to swim into the social information stream of provocations, facts and opinions. There are two terms in manufacturing and product development software that created most of confusion for the last decade – PDM and PLM. Navigate to the following link to find lots of publications about the topic. To my taste, the topic PDM vs. PLM became boring. I’d even suggest to add it to the list of boring PLM topics introduced by Jos Voskuil.

However, here is some news. My blogging buddy and analyst Chad Jackson is predicting PDM revolution. Navigate your browser to read about future PDM Revolution. Chad’s take on PDM revolution smells cloud and two new cloud design systems – Fusion 360 and SolidWorks Mechanical Conceptual. This is my favorite passage that summarizes Chad’s crystal ball prediction of Hands-Free PDM:

If you take a look at Fusion 360 and Solidworks Mechanical Conceptual, at least in my exposure to it, there’s no step where you explicitly save your design or model. It’s done automatically in the background. When you close your model? The latest version will be there when you return. What happens when you create variations on a design that amounts to branching? Look at the model history and you’ll see those various branches tracked for you. So if you think about it, it is essentially hands-free. It does the brunt of the work automatically and practically invisibly for you.

Sounds like revolution to you? I think yes. However, here is a deal. It impose a significant threat to the future implementations of PLM. The mess of data in your local CAD-PDM now moves to the next step of the product development. Until now, companies implementing PDM took an advantages of their PLM solutions from the same vendors to manage BOM and ECO processes integrated with CAD data. Cloud CAD systems are not there yet and probably will not be there. Integration becomes an imperative to make hands-free PDM successful.

What is my conclusion? Cloud CAD and hands-free PDM is a signal to think about BOM management. In a different way. They key words are "single" and "integrated". Without that, we will enter into the messy world of structure mapping and synchronizations. If you are vendor, you need to think about openness and web APIs. If you are a potential customer of a cloud CAD/PDM hybrid, ask vendors how flexible and granular is "save" function that turns your work into stream of information stored in database. The ugly truth is that until now, file structure was doing integration job for you. Not any more. It is gone. Forever. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PLM, Fun and Innovation

February 4, 2013

Fun and coolness are trending topics these days. Are you doing boring business or having fun? Fun is much better and, speaking seriously, much more productive. That’s why the most efficient ways to educate kids are usually involving some elements of fun and games. Enterprise IT and business software are probably one of the most conservative places. Go to many companies IT departments or speak to business consulting and you can find yourself in a social environment back 15-20 years back with not much fun. Consumerization and BYOD trends created some holes in old fashion business software culture, but the overall balance is still very much conservative.

So, what about PLM fun? Frankly, not much PLM fun these days. Nevertheless, I can see some positive changes. Thanks for social media, social networks and blogs, PLM companies and PLM consulting people are now talking in an open way about what PLM is about why a way they propose to approach PLM is different. Sometimes, it is very funny like in the following video clip of Gangnam compass explaining Dassault 3DExperience style.

However, pure PLM is still very boring place according to one of my blogging buddies Jos Voskuil. Navigate to his recent posts - How come PLM is boring? I found his post quite entertaining. Find few minutes and have a read Jos’ post. It reminded me old IBM days when every manager knew that nobody will fired after signing a contract with IBM. In other words, regardless of how you perform if you sign with IBM, your life is saved. You can see a similar line here. According to Jos, changing the way to work is the problem and not PLM software as it is now. So, if you find the way to connect you business problems with PLM technology you are on the right path. The change is what important according to Jos. Here is the passage:

It is not the friendly user-interface of PLM system XYZ or the advanced technical capabilities of PLM system ABC,  that will make a PLM implementation easier. Nothing is solved on the cloud  or by using a mobile device. If there is no change when implementing PLM, why implement  and build a system to lock yourself in even more?

Speaking about innovation, cloud remains one of the topics that drive most controversy in PLM. The buzzword itself, history of the topic and vendors strategies are creating a combination of complicated terms. Almost all PLM vendors today are reported about “cloud-ready” or “cloud-enabling” technologies. In that context I wanted to bring funny video from 2009 showing Oracle’s CEO Larry Ellison speaking about cloud technologies. You can watch more here.

I specially liked the following phrase- “Our industry is so bizarre. We just change a term and think we change the technology”. It is so true… The amount of buzzwords is the marketing materials of PLM companies produces on one side and the amount of “business practices” introduced by PLM consulting on the other side is skyrocketing. Enterprise software is undergoing the most radical shakeup since the turn of the century. These days, I’d recommend college “101″ courses and “for dummies” series of books for many enterprise software and consulting people.

In few weeks, I’m going to attend Product Innovation Congress in Berlin. The same event was called PLM innovation before in 2012 and 2011. Looking on the list of attendees and companies presented it sounds like a solid business event.  Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Prof. Martin Eigner, practically all PLM vendors and many other attendees. I’m looking forward to learn about innovation and find some fun there.

Best, Oleg

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