Venture Capital and the future of Cloud

May 9, 2012

Cloud is hyping. One of the indicators is to watch if VC money is following in the direction of the cloud computing and cloud software. I’m not pretending to analyze trends of venture capital – this is clearly “beyond beyond PLM” capacity. At the same time, the following article caught my attention earlier last week - Future of Cloud Survey Shows significance of Open Source by North Bridge. For those of your not aware about NB, you can take a look on their portfolio page. You can find that NB invested in several CAD-related companies in the past - SolidWorks (sold to Dassault System), Revit Technology (sold to Autodesk), SpaceClaim, Newforma and some others.

NorthBridge seems to be shifts their focus to cloud computing. Navigate your browser to the following link to explore the Future of Cloud Computing. Don’t miss their twitter account - @futureofcloud. The article I was mentioned earlier speaks about of the survey NB made related to the cloud computing in 2011. Here are the most interesting passages I found there.

We found 40% of respondents are only experimenting with cloud computing at this point. Another 26% of survey respondents reported they are waiting for more maturity in the market before adopting a cloud strategy. In terms of current cloud use, 13% indicated complete confidence for mission critical applications, while 11 percent of respondents cited usage spikes. This shows that while cloud computing is indeed just getting started for a majority of the market, there is current production use of cloud computing that is significant…. The significance of saving money with cloud computing was reinforced by the fact that 55% of respondents believe the cloud has a lower total cost ownership (TCO) and only 13% indicating a higher TCO in the cloud.

NorthBridge is running a new survey - 2012 NorthBridge Future of Cloud Computing. Navigate here if you want to share your opinion.

What is my conclusion? Engineering, manufacturing and enterprises is a complex space characterized by slow speed of changes and sophisticated dependencies and eco-system. It is interesting to see how VC long time invested in companies in the enterprise domain shifts their interest to cloud computing. Actually, I can see it as a promising fact that can create an alternative to the kingdom of four big companies in this space. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Freebie. NorthBridge didn’t pay me to write about their cloud initiative.

2 Comments | Daily PLM Think Tank | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

PLM Implementations and Open APIs

May 8, 2012

Let’s talk nuts and bolts today. APIs.. If you think about any PDM / PLM implementation, the question about API is one of the most important. Why so? Because you know – it is near to impossible to get all done out of the box and via configuration. Even if marketing advertised and sales promised, you will have to have something to be done behind the scene using this magic word API.

PLM Openness

The topic of openness comes very often these days. I’ve been posting about openness about a year ago -PLM and New Openness. Notable news around PLM Openness is coming these days around so-called “Codex of PLM Openness” introduced by ProSTEP iViP. Navigate to the following link and you discover that majority of PLM vendors, including big-three-PLM (Dassault, PTC andSiemens PLM) are committed. Yesterday, during the opening session of annual Siemens PLM user conference – PLM World 2012 in Las Vegas, the topic of PLM Openness came into many conversations and even was captured by Siemens PLM blog.

Enterprise Systems and APIs

Enterprise systems have long history of API development. If you spent enough time in your life with databases and enterprise business you probably remember horrible stories of proprietary databases, move to SQL, hope of XML, believe in SOA / Web Services latest dreams about REST APIs. Last week, I came to a very interesting blog trilogy from CloudAve blog about enterprise architecture, APIs and more called – Simple Service Enterprise part 1, part 2, part 3. It is a bit long, but I recommend you to have a read. The following picture was resonating to my thoughts related to PLM implementations and APIs:

Here is my favorite passage that I’d apply to product lifecycle management and many other enterprise implementations:

…the fundamentals of information interchange: exposing business functionality, currently encapsulated in the back-end, to the outside world via services. These services are a one-to-one translation to back-end functions, which are one-to-one translations to business process steps themselves: the smallest level of business transaction.

Implementations, API and Open Data

Here is the idea how I see the future of open APIs. PLM system(s) is holding hostage of data and responsible for a set of process and transactions. Since PLM system cannot live in a vacuum, the interaction of PLM system with other systems in the enterprise (including various B2C and B2C services) is driven by processes. In order to have a productive API, you need to expose these processes using an appropriate level of granularity, including semantics of data (in this context, thinking about resources seems to me as an appropriate way). Having such a level semantically-resource-oriented-APIs can provide an easy and open way to interact with PLM system to build the most effective services.

What is my conclusion? To build a good API is a very complicated task. To make Open API is even harder. I can see a potential in exposing both semantics of data and related system functions in a way allowing me to use it and accomplish processes automatically. I think, web and REST give us a bit promise. The responsibility of vendors is to develop an appropriate level of granularity to make it usable. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Picture is courtesy of CloudAve.

Leave a Comment » | Daily PLM Think Tank | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

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

Leave a Comment » | Daily PLM Think Tank | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

Why PLM and BIM fail in the same way?

May 5, 2012

I want to come back to the topic that drives more of my interest lately – BIM and PLM. In my view, PLM and BIM have some future potential. It will come from "post-interoperability" world – the word when vendors stop fighting data and will start a fight for openness. I was writing about that almost four years ago in my post – PLM and BIM: Common Roots or Common Future? We are still not in the post-walled-garden world, and I’m not expecting it coming soon. This post is not about a bright future of PLM/BIM 3.0, but about some observation about similarity in failure of both PLM and BIM.

I’ve been reading an article in aecbytes – Getting a BIM Rap: Why Implementations Fail, and What You Can Do About It. The article is talking about two main non-technological aspects related to implementation and adoption of BIM practices and products – people factor and change factor. Here is my favorite passage:

BIM implementation is not really about software. It’s about organizational change—and wrenching, disruptive change at that. Our experiences—and the experiences of our clients—have demonstrated that people and processes are far more important than technology.

Of course, BIM is an absolutely wonderful tool, and it has great potential to streamline costs and processes, to help different disciplines communicate effectively and to ensure little confusion on a job site. But to get to that promised land of benefits, you have to pass through the wilderness of adoption, which always seems to hinge on organizational change, not technology. This is the inconvenient truth.

It made me think about additional aspects of commonality between PLM and BIM – they fail in the same way. Which led me to some thoughts related to adoption of both PLM and BIM software.

People

Do you remember the following post I made a year ago – PLM: How to Fix Technologies and Stop Fixing People? I wrote it after listening to John Gage keynote at COFES 2011. One of the phrases resonated – “Technology is easy. People are hard“. The influence of people is a significant factor in software product implementation that requires from people to re-think the way they are doing their business. Both PLM and BIM software can eliminate some roles in organizations and change business processes between organizations. It makes the process of software adoption long and complicated. This is a place where failure comes very often.

Changes

Changes is another aspect, which very often comes together with data and process oriented software like PLM and BIM. The specific character of almost every enterprise-level data and process management software is to focus on how to change organization – improve processes, re-organize business relationships, change tools, etc. It is extremely hard to people, since change is hard. So, it leads to failures.

What is my conclusion? To work with people is hard. To make a software for people is double-hard. The time when software adoption was a problem of people is in the past. "Consumer behavior" is coming to enterprise software. Vendors in both PLM and BIM domains need to take a note and re-think the way software works. Painless adoption, user experience, adaptive behavior related to potential change – these elements need to become a priority for the next wave of PLM and BIM software. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Leave a Comment » | Daily PLM Think Tank | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

PLM and SharePoint Technical Definition

April 30, 2012

I’m off to Detroit, MI this week for Aras PLM user conference – ACE 2012. Microsoft .NET and MS SQL are two important elements of Aras infrastructure. For many enterprises these days, Microsoft IT based technology is no-brainerdecision. It runs everywhere.

It is near impossible to talk about PLM and Microsoft’s technologies without talking about what potential role Microsoft SharePoint can play in establishment of scalable PLM solutions. Usually, Microsoft SharePoint and PLM are over-hyped by lots of marketing slogans. I decided to take off marketing and get down to SharePoint technical definition that can help PLM and IT managers in organization to decide about how to position PLM and SharePoint in their strategies and implementations.

The following article – Making Sense of SharePoint 2010 by Tim Anderson provides a very good foundation for my post today. Have a read and make your conclusion. The following quote is the best introduction to what is SharePoint in a nutshell:

So what is SharePoint really? Technically, it is an ASP.NET application which runs on Internet Information Services (IIS), Microsoft’s web server, and which stores most of its data in a SQL Server database. Conceptually, it is the outcome of Microsoft’s efforts over many years to create a web storage system, a document repository accessible via a web browser.

SharePoint is extremely good if you are working with Office documents. It provides a very tight integration with Microsoft Products. The majority of companies today are running Office. I was able to see some companies taking off to Open Office or Google lately, but not doubt – Office is mainstream even after of public web 2.0 disruption. The following passage explains clearly your advantages of working with Office in SharePoint – seamless integration.

SharePoint is designed to integrate with the Microsoft Office client applications such as Word and Excel . If you do not use Office, SharePoint is unlikely to be worth running. When used with Office, a key feature is that users can open a document from a SharePoint site, edit it, and save it, without being presented with a Save As dialog. This is one reason SharePoint works better than simply storing documents on a web site with download and upload features.

I want to add few words about multiple versions of SharePoint. There are three versions – Foundation, SharePoint Server 2010 and SharePoint Enterprise 2010. Here is the summary:

Foundation includes document management, discussion forums, wikis, and support for applications including workflows. SharePoint Server 2010 extends this with search, compliance features including document retention policies, server-side Microsoft Word automation, social media features including status updates, ratings and tagging, individual profiles and content sites, video and audio media support, templates for workflows, improved scalability, and more. SharePoint Enterprise 2010 adds server-side support for Access databases and Excel automation services, business intelligence integration, support for forms applications using InfoPath (part of Microsoft Office), more scalable search and more.

PLM and SharePoint

I think, the overall hype of SharePoint replacing PLM solutions is over these days. Nevertheless, SharePoint became practically ubiquitous these days if you think about enterprises. The infrastructure provided by SharePoint is well-known by IT and service organizations. As soon as it approved to be used in organization can provide a backbone for collaborative applications. You need to take into the account the cost of SharePoint.

The base Foundation product is surprisingly rich, considering that it is a free add-on. SharePoint involves licensing for three products, each with separate CALs (Client Access Licenses). These are Windows Server, which is always required; SQL Server, which is required unless you use the free SQL Server Express, and SharePoint itself, which is required for editions other than Foundation. Since SQL Server Express is limited to single-server installs and 10GB per database, some organisations which can get by with Foundation will still need SQL Server and its CALs.

You can consider SharePoint as a platform for customization.

SharePoint is an application, but it is also a platform. Since it is built on ASP.NET, code that runs on ASP.NET will generally run in SharePoint too. Office services for Word and Excel enable applications that parse, manipulate and create documents.

What is my conclusion? SharePoint is stable Microsoft based infrastructure. If your company is running on Microsoft products you can consider it as an option to develop additional applications. Check your PLM provider on how flexible PLM platform and applications can be integrated with SharePoint – you can save a lot of service money and people resources in the future by doing so. Reading from Aras website:

Our application framework is implemented on the Microsoft .NET and Microsoft SQL Server platform. And Aras technology has built in security from the ground up and a world-class professional services and support team to meet your unique design, development and infrastructure needs.

I’ll pay a close attention understanding how Aras keep following integration with SharePoint and Microsoft technological foundation. Follow my blog and twitter later. this week.

Best, Oleg

Disclosure: Aras paid my registration and traveling expenses to ACE 2012. Microsoft wasn’t involved. Both Aras and Microsoft are in no way influenced the content of this post.

11 Comments | Daily PLM Think Tank | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

PLM, Multiple BOMs and Cross Functional Teams

April 26, 2012

The ability to develop virtual conversation accorss continents and timezones is one of the most exciting parts of my blogging hobby. Earlier last week, I had a very interesting discussion about multiple Bill of Materials. It started from the discussion about BOM management and PLM 360 with John Evans here. Furthermore, it ended in almost one-hour conversation with additional twitter conversation.

The conversation about multiple bill of materials and different ways to implement it drove me to get back to one of my favorite books – Engineering Documentation Control Handbook by Frank Watts. This book is a bible. It is "a must-read book" for every CM in manufacturing company, and every product manager involved into software development for PDM/PLM. Here is the link from Amazon.

Cross-Functional Teams

The organization of cross-functional teams is one of the most important things in a modern product-development process organization. Things can go very easy if you are sort of "garage level company". Everybody speaks to everybody in this company and there is no problem in coordination and collaboration. However, as soon as a company is growing, it faces the problem of collaboration, communication and terminology. Things can go in a quite disconnected way when people from design and manufacturing are collaborating with manufacturing or production people. The following picture below (picture credit to EDC Handbook) presents the idea of cross-functional teams very nicely.

Cross-functional-team.jpg

Multiple Bill of Materials

BOM plays a fundamental role to establish communication and collaboration between teams. I see Bill of Material as a universal media in cross-functional teams. Different people contribute to this Bill of Material with a diverse set of information. You can see a picture that can illustrate this process (picture credit to EDC Handbook). The ability of software involved into product development (PDM, PLM, ERP, SCM, etc.) is to provide this level of media to collaboration across the teams.

Multiple-BOM-input.jpg

What becomes clear to me that notion of a single BOM, constantly shrinking and growing is the one I envision as the one of the most efficient ways to maintain Bill of Material in manufacturing organization. Few years ago, I had a chance to share the idea of a single BOM in my post – Seven Rules Towards Single Bill of Material.

What is my conclusion? To manage Bill of Material is one of the most complicated tasks in product development. For the last 10 years, multiple ideas and strategies were introduced in the field of BOM management. Synchronization of multiple BOM views and representations is a painful and complicated task. If future PLM software will be able to eliminate the need of synchronization of BOM across multiple systems and teams, it will be a huge pain relief to product development. To think about cross-functional teams in that context is probably a good starting point. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

PS. I will continue with my "single BOM investigation" in future posts. Stay tuned…

1 Comment | Daily PLM Think Tank | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

Will Search Make PLM Cool?

April 26, 2012

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

Cool is clearly trending. First time I posted about my “FREE and COOL” theory in CAD/PLM about two years ago here. I can see many changes happened since that time. Cool stuff is not a joke any more. It went much beyond the level of geeks drinking coffee in Palo Alto downtown Starbucks. If you want to quantify the power of cool, the following numbers aboutApple 3Q financial results can be quite refreshing. Navigatehere to see that iPhone business is bigger than whole Microsoft.

In my view, the understanding of the cool trend is coming to engineering and manufacturing space as well. Accessing information in a meaningful way can be a very cool way to help engineers in their work. CAD and PLM companies are flirting with enterprise search vendors and search technologies already quite long time. You can read one of my write ups about that here – PLM Lifelike Search Injection.

I was reading a blog post by Aras Corp – Get Global Intranet Search From A9 For Aras Innovator. The sticker COOL STUFF caught my attention. Read the article, but more importantly, watch the video. A9 from Alcove9 using open source Apache Solr Search to power their capability to index Aras Innovator content.

Another video presenting Inforbix Search Tips can give you an idea how search of PLM and CAD content can come from Infobrix. Navigate to Inforbix Search Tip Video to read more. Inforbix is using semantic technologies combined with noSQL data-management approach to provide search and navigation capabilities.

What is my conclusion? Search is an interesting function. Since “Google” officially became a verb, many people consider a practical and intuitive search as absolutely important element of any system. At the same time, PLM and other engineering content are semantically rich and can provide difficulties to a traditional Google-search approaches. As we can see from both examples below, the special treatment needed to make it cool. The most important function of search is to solve noise vs. signal. Google approach works well for “lady Gaga” type of searches. PLM, Engineering and Manufacturing require some alternative approaches. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

PS. Next week, I’m attending ACE 2012 conference in Detroit, MI and hope to learn more about cool stuff from Aras.

1 Comment | Daily PLM Think Tank | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

Will “cloud drive” disrupt engineering collaboration?

April 25, 2012

What is the next file system that will be available for our disposal? Cloud file system. Really? In the past few years, I’ve been writing about the future of moving CAD and engineering content to the cloud and various options that will be available to make it happen. Navigate to read some of my previous posts related to this topic – Google Cloud: Ready for CAD/PLM? or CAD, New Collaboration and Online Storage Services.

It seems to me some cool elements of “cloud dreams” started to become a reality these days. Dropbox was clearly one of the most successful pioneering cloud storage. Apple iCoud and Microsoft Sky Drive are two additional players in this space. One of the interesting events in the last few days was the introduction of Google Drive. If you haven’t had a chance to read about that, navigate to the following link to read more.

Engadet just published an interesting article comparing four different cloud storage services – Google, iCloud, Dropbox and SkyDrive. You can see prices and other features and functions. It is worth reading.

What CAD vendors are doing at this space?

My earlier prediction is that cloud will become a good place to store cloud files. One of my old posts about that was – Is Google Docs a good place to store CAD Files. Engineering and manufacturing community is actively discussing “cloud” topic. No single opinion. Read my Product Lifecycle Data and Cloud Trap Debates. At the same time, I have to say that things are starting to move, and some of the CAD / PLM vendors are running fast to introduce their support for cloud drives.

I was reading AutoCAD WS blog yesterday – AutoCAD WS launches Google Drive integration. In a nutshell, it sounds dead simple. AutoCAD WS is an application that can be used natively on Google Drive to open AutoCAD files.

CAD vendors, Cloud and competition

It is interesting to see, but it seems to me some competitive friction may happen between cloud storage vendors and CAD/PLM companies that focusing on collaboration. Products like Autodesk Cloud, SolidWorks n!Fuze and few others will have to provide visible competitive advantages compared to Google, Apple and Dropbox. CAD vendors need to take a note, in my view.

What is my conclusion? Cloud storage and discs become very powerful. The ability to keep everything in a single virtual connection(s) simplifies many questions related how to access information from disparate places by multiple people. For many years, it was one of the most complicated questions – collaboration in design environment. With the introduction of the cloud discs, we are getting an additional way to simplify the access and improve collaboration. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Leave a Comment » | Daily PLM Think Tank | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

PLM and the death of complexity

April 24, 2012

The complexity of engineering and manufacturing software is a well-known fact. The topic isn’t really new. For the last couple of years the complexity topic came to me in different context and various forms. Two weeks ago, I was writing about that in my blog – PLM: Data, Search and Future User Experience. If you haven’t had a chance to read it, please take a look.

One of my working hypotheses these days is that consumer market and consumer software provides a significant injection of ideas for user experience. In parallel consumer behaviors of web and other software are changing state of mind of many end users. I was reading an article outline from Gartner about consumer trends that impact technology. I found this write up quite interesting. Navigate your browser to the following link to read it – Gartner Outlines 10 Consumer Macro Trends to Impact Technology, Media and Service Providers for Next 10 Years and have a read. This passage is my favorite one.

Market Trend No. 9 — The Death of Complexity

The consumer market is becoming progressively less tolerant of complexity. Although consumers tend to buy products with ever-richer features, they often prefer those that are simple and intuitive. The ability to provide appealing and intuitive user interfaces has become a critical point of differentiation among competing technology providers. As technology becomes more complex, vendors need to invest more in keeping the user interface simple and intuitive. T&SPs therefore need to focus on simplifying technology, pricing, brand messaging, and feedback and interaction, and consider offering chargeable help services for consumers challenged by installing and configuring new equipment and services in their homes.

It made me think that fighting complexity will be one of the most critical elements of the future CAD/PLM vendor strategies. I was looking on what CAD/PLM companies are doing these days. I can summarize it in the following 3 directions:

1- Leverage OS user experience.

This direction was very popular in the past. In the world of Microsoft Windows dominance, to adopt OS user experience and make your application transparent is an interesting decision. It started from leveraging File Explorer UI and continue towards deeper integration with Microsoft Office, SharePoint and other systems. The examples are SolidWorks EPDM, PTC Windchill and few others.

2- Mimic successful web application in consumer market

Web is the source of inspiration for many startup companies and well established brands in CAD / PLM. The most popular elements of use experience that companies have tried to use were – Google search and Social Networking. The experiments presented by Siemens PLM as Active Workspace is one of the examples. Dassault came with Exalead search SBA, but I have never seen something that was delivered in this space by Exalead after DS acquisition.

3- 3D and Gaming

Because design content in CAD is visual and in many cases is 3D, companies have tried to use gaming analogies to develop the next successful user experience in this space. 3DLive from Dassault was clearly pioneering in this space by delivering their 3DLive. These days, I want to mention Siemens PLM Active Workspace. It is another interesting experience of mixing of 3D and search experience.

What is my conclusion? The death of the complexity is here. PLM and other software vendors in the manufacturing and engineering space need to take a note. The user experience will not be set by enterprise monsters. New generation of people will not tolerate the complex PLM software. This is a time to rest the expectations. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Leave a Comment » | Daily PLM Think Tank | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

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

5 Comments | Daily PLM Think Tank | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 73 other followers