Cloud PLM debates about multitenant models

November 8, 2012

The discussion about cloud PLM is growing these days. Big players are entering the game. Latest announcement made by Siemens PLM about TeamCenter on the cloud just emphasized that PLM cannot avoid the "cloud" game. The list of cloud options for PLM today including a long list of companies – Autodesk PLM 360, Aras, Arena Solutions, Dassault Enovia V6, Dexma PLM from Ascon, PTC Windchil / IBM, TeamCenter and more. One of the questions that always raised by customers and analysts in this space is so-called "multi-tenat model". Usually confusing and raising many debates about what is "true cloud" solution, this topic is indeed very important and provide significant differentiations from both technological and business standpoint.

I’ve made few write ups earlier this year about cloud and multi-tenancy. One of them – Cloud PLM: what do you need to know about multitenancy provides a deep analyzes of all options multi-tenant implementation options. Two additional posts – What Oracle multi-tenancy means for PLM providers and Cloud PLM and IaaS options are discussing various aspects of multi-tenant implementations and cloud infrastructure usage.

Cloud PLM arguments

I can identify two major groups of people arguing about what means "cloud" for PLM and enterprise, in general. One group is saying that cloud PLM is just the ability to put PLM server located in "another place". I agree – this is one of the options. Second group of people is defining cloud PLM as "a service" available from some business applications located "somewhere" outside of customer infrastructure. ASP is not a new option and use d by many vendors in the cloud domain. SaaS option assumes you provide services (only) and make infrastructure (eg. IaaS) transparent.

I suggest to take a deeper look. The following article came to my attention couple of weeks ago – Ask the Experts: What’s the Difference between ASP and SaaS? In my view, it provides good arguments to both of these models: ASP and SaaS. The following two pictures show the diagram of the options. I liked the following passage:

The difference between ASP and SaaS providers lies mainly in the way they manage their respective computing resources… Most ASPs use a single environment for each customer, which means that they provide a specific application that is set up for the individual customer. Each customer uses the business software as a single tenant, and does not share it with anyone else. All application setup configuration, and sometimes even server and operation configuration, is unique for each client. On the other hand, with a SaaS provider, all customers share the same computing resources: servers, application, and database in a so-called multitenant model. So, while an ASP hosts the application environment in its own “building,” a SaaS provider uses the same application environment for all its customers, and they all share the same “building” (see figures 1 and 2)

Cloud ASP Model

Cloud SaaS Model

What is my conclusion? Most of the manufacturing companies are still not well educated about infrastructure and different "cloud options". To understand them is important for IT decision processes. I think to claim buzzwords like "true cloud" or "false cloud" is a fundamentally wrong approach. Both ASP and SaaS models are optimizing resources and cost of the infrastructure . ASP model is more "resources neutral" – you just pull resources by "moving servers outside of your company". At the same time, SaaS (or service model) hides servers resources from your company and provide "the resource consumption view". Such view is generally more focused on business functions and less on IT compared to ASP model. To understand the implication of each of these models on your company operation can help you to decide. Important. Just my thoughts.

Best, Oleg

Image courtesy of [nattavut] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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PLM Cloud and Software Licensing Transformation

July 18, 2012

The topic of software licensing is one of the most debated in the context of industry transition to the cloud. PLM is not immunized to this discussion, and I can see it happen in many forms in blogs, twitter and other social media forms. I definitely cannot bring all quotes to this post. One discussion that caught my attention recently in Ralph Grabowski’s WorldCAD Access blog. Ralph is quoting Griffin Securities analyst Jay Vleeschhouwer report from the Autodesk annual analyst meeting in New York:

For Autodesk, switching to the cloud is bigger than the ’90s switch to Windows.

Navigate to this link and have read. Don’t miss comments – they are probably as important as the article itself. In addition to traditional discussion about “security” and “cloud” danger, I found few interesting notes on the topic related to the potential danger of usage metering and other “new forms” of licensing. Here is my favorite passage:

Autodesk showed a slide indicating a progression from today’s mix of perpetual and maintenance revenues (for blended desktop and cloud workflows) to a future of per-user subscriptions and usage metering.

Cloud and Software Licensing Shakeout

This statement above made me think about the real transformation which will happen with licensing model in the cloud era. Traditional software licensing and (especially) enterprise licensing models are not suitable into cloud environment. Until now, the vast majority of enterprise software vendors use to license Servers, CPUs and Databases. With the introduction of cloud environment, most of the metrics became obsolete. How you can license server when you, actually, not really interested to know how many physical servers and/or virtual machines are running to support your environment.

Will “usage” become an ultimate licensing model?

Pay as you go. This is one of the famous and well-known slogans of SaaS (Software as a Service world). The wide adoption of this model in consumer web, raised the question if such a model will work well for the enterprise. Here are few pros and cons I can see.

Pros:

- simple model focused on “resource consumption”

- create a feeling or “fear pricing”

Cons:

- in some situations can be unpredictable

- can create a feeling of “license hostage” for customers.

What is a potential alternative to “usage” in cloud licensing? In my view, I can see 3 additional alternatives: capacity (size of the data storage), timeshare and end user (named users) licenses. All these models are implying “usage” in different forms. To pick up the right one (or combination) will be an important step for vendors.

What is my conclusion? One of the most important questions every cloud vendor needs to ask these days is how to create “a predictable licensing model”. Customers are afraid about a potential license hostage. To prevent it, vendors need to focus on transparency of cost calculations and potential alternatives. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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“True Cloud” Solution and PLM Competition

July 2, 2011

CAD, PLM and engineering software world is very competitive. Time ago, CAD vendors competed on the number of features. It is not unusual to see lists that comparing features and functions. However, nowadays the competition on features becomes useless. In the era of iPad apps and Web 2.0, you can just say that this application isn’t cool enough :) . I’m almost not following competitive conversations online, and you can rarely see such a type of topics on my blog.

The following Vuuch blog article struck my attention – Vuuch is the first "true cloud" PLM application. Take a time during your 4th of July long weekend and read this article. My good fried, Alex Neihaus is taking the conversation to the level combining some competitive statements mixed with really geeky and cloud language. Here is my favorite passage from this blog:

…despite lots of strategy talks with customers and high-concept keynotes at user conferences from the big PLM vendors, the first company across the finish line with a true cloud application for the PLM community is Vuuch…

…To be a true cloud app, it’s not enough to have a web portal that users access. That’s what Gmail is. Instead of your messages being stored on an internal server behind a corporate firewall, they are stored on Google’s servers. Big deal. That ain’t what we call cloud. To really be a cloud app, the application must have an API that can be called remotely. That is, it must not only have UI, it must be callable from other applications, using cloud technologies…

I found this definition a bit shocking and decide to provide some clarification about cloud technologies that can help to readers to translate this from geeky to normal.

Cloud Computing in Various Forms

First of all, I’d like to point readers to Wikipedia’s article about Cloud Computing. It is educational and provide a comprehensive analyzes of multiple aspects of cloud applications.

Cloud computing refers to the use and access of multiple server-based computational resources via a digital network (WAN, Internet connection using the World Wide Web, etc.). Cloud users may access the server resources using a computer, netbook, pad computer, smart phone, or other device. In cloud computing, applications are provided and managed by the cloud server and data is also stored remotely in the cloud configuration. Users do not download and install applications on their own device or computer; all processing and storage is maintained by the cloud server. The on-line services may be offered from a cloud provider or by a private organization.

Modern development of cloud qualifes three levels of cloud based solution – SaaS, PaaS, IaaS.

SaaS (Software as a service) is a software deployed over the internet, available to the end user as and when wanted. It is also called sometime "software on demand". Payment is per-usage or subscription. SaaS can be considered as the oldest and mature part of cloud computing. Examples of SaaS are salesforce.com, Netsuite, Google Gmail and some others.

PaaS (Platform as a service) is a combination of a development platform and solution stack delivered as a service on demand. It provides the infrastructure that can be used to build a new software application or extend the existing ones without underlying cost of buying and deploying additional hardware and software. Sometimes, PaaS is used to extend the capabilities of existing SaaS solutions. Examples are Force.com (from Salesforce.com); Google App Engine and Microsoft Azure.

IaaS (Infrastructure as a service) delivers computer infrastructure, typically a platform virtualization environment. It includes service, software, data-center and network equipment available as a single bundle. The best known IaaS environments are Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) and some others.

PLM on the Cloud

The idea of PLM on the cloud isn’t new. The first company pioneering cloud deployment in PLM space was Arena Solution (former Bom.Com). Nowadays, vendors are talking about cloud solutions. I can see different PLM vendors are taking various strategies related to the cloud. Among 4 main companies in this space, Dassault is leading with their cloud offering based on utilization of AWS and placements of V6 platform on EC2. Autodesk strategy seems to be interesting too. On one side, Autodesk Buzzsaw is a mature application service (SaaS – according to classification above). On the other side, Autodesk is trying "cloud water" with multiple applications – some of the utilize cloud infrastructure (i.e. Amazon EC) and some of them are focusing more on mobile (AutoCAD WS). Siemens PLM and PTC are more neutral in this cloud game. Vuuch, as I learned from Alex Neihaus’ blog, is now joining PLM on the cloud race.

What is my conclusion? Competition is a tough thing. Especially, when it comes to technology. Customers are not interesting in technologies and more focused on applications these days. I’m a very happy customer of Google Apps and I don’t care if Gmail is "true cloud app" or "false cloud app". I see PLM and engineering software lives in the world of SaaS. Efficient leverage of PaaS and IaaS can be PLM cloud apps successful. Just my opinion, of course. YMMV.

Best, Oleg

*pictures are courtesy of Wikipedia and Vuuch blog

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PLM Collaboration and SaaS Wake-Up Call

January 18, 2011

I read on Forrester Blog about acquisition of Dimdim by Salesforce.com. T.J. Keits of Forrester is discussing various aspects of Dimdim advantages as well as Salesforce acquisition details. Last year, I had a chance to try out Dimdim and I found the environment very convenient. The following characteristics of Dimdim mentioned as very complimentary to Salesforce’s Chatter released earlier – tools for social collaboration. Here is the quote from T.J. Keits blog:

Dimdim’s real-time communications technology fleshes out the collaboration story Salesforce began with its social offering, Chatter, last year. This blending of tools will boost the collaborative power of some key Chatter features:

  • Profiles. On its own, this social tool is the foundation for information sharing and expertise location in an organization. Users can post information about themselves and their job and associate their profile with certain shared information in a searchable format. With added conferencing capabilities, employees can locate an individual and start a meeting with them, allowing the parties to communicate and jointly view data in real time.
  • Groups. Salesforce’s turn on team workspaces allows employees to share information and work together in a central location. Unlike a team space in SharePoint or Lotus Quickr, though, there was no integration with any tools that would allow for synchronous interaction. With the inclusion of Dimdim’s conferencing tools, information workers can now communicate within the context of the team space, allowing for real-time collaboration within a workflow.
  • File sharing. This is a recent addition to the Chatter offering, but an interesting one because it allows for content sharing within their activity stream. Of course, the real potential of this will be unlocked when the option to start a web meeting is included with that shared document, allowing a worker to start a live discussion with the individual who posted the content.

PLM, Social Collaboration and Platforms

Vendors in PLM space put a significant emphasize of “social aspects” of collaboration. Social Link of PTC, Social Innovation of Dassault and some others are best examples to present an interest of PLM vendors not to lose “social aspects”. However, none of PLM vendors didn’t decide to have a core collaborative functionality as part of their own portfolios. Most of the work PLM vendors are doing was about integration of existing collaborative features and platforms (i.e. SharePoint etc.).

What is my conclusion? Salesforce presented an interesting case related to the acquisition of platform capabilities. In my view, this is a very logical step in the future development of Saleforce’s platform. What it means for PLM? In my view, it makes Salesforce more competitive. Some of PLM vendors are thinking about their cloud / SaaS offerings. The wake-up call for owning some fundamental technologies can be too late. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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Manufacturing Companies and SaaS Business Opportunity

January 11, 2011

I had a chance to watch Jason Green’s video interview by TechCrunchTV Sarah Lacy. Take a time, watch and make an opinion. I found interesting to listen to Valley VC, which is strategically focusing on cloud and enterprise opportunities. This is not a common trend, in my view.

Take a look on the following video.

This is not a first time I’m writing about a cloud opportunity in the manufacturing market. Navigate your browser to few of my following “cloud posts” if you had a chance to miss them: PLM and Cloud: Hold the Promise? and PLM and Pragmatic Cloud- Do Less. However, this video made me think about few interesting trends I wanted to share with you.

B2B and Cloud Services Trend
One of the important trends I can see in the enterprise cloud market is the development of B2B cloud services. Why it is interesting, in my view? It provides an alternative way to just pushing enterprise customers with enterprise product suites converted to the “cloud or SaaS model”. Business Services can become an interesting and disruptive approach for enterprise market.

PLM on the Cloud
I have a mixed feeling about PLM and Cloud. Definitely, few mindshare vendors already made (or planning) to make plans for cloud offering. The top two companies here are Autodesk and Dassault. In the past, PLM industry had few companies moving towards SaaS/On Demand. Arena Solutions as well as PTC/IBM bet on their future with Cloud/SaaS infrastructure. The biggest problem I can see in this domain is the replication of existing products, portfolio and plans to the cloud. This is not how I can see manufacturing and engineering software need to be developed.

Bottom Up Approach
I can see an interesting opportunity in development of manufacturing services, which has an opposite philosophy to the current mindshare PLM and ERP vendors. Existing enterprise and PLM models are very top-down oriented and assume a significant agreement about how a system needs to be implemented and how data need to be managed. Development of business services can be an interesting approach to provide an alternative solution on the market.

Freemium Business Models
Another aspect of SaaS and Cloud business is in implementing new  business models. Freemium is one of them. Normally, people see “Free” as an option that can be used only for a consumer market. The complexity of enterprise implementation and high potential cost of free services, it seems to be a wrong option. However, I can hear Jason is talking about 10-15% convergence rate in enterprise freemium models. It can shake business modeling canons and create a significant opportunity in the market.

What is my conclusion? Thinking about PLM Reset 2011, I can feel it is a time to re-think common practices of SaaS applications. Companies have tried to replicate existing software and shift the delivery towards the cloud. This is a wrong approach. The biggest potential of cloud will be in the combination of new approaches, technology, delivery and business models. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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Collaborative PLM and Oracle 2011 Targets

January 3, 2011

I’ve read the following article Oracle butts into online collaboration space with Cloud Office. It struck me as something important. Forget about Google vs. Microsoft online wars. It seems to me Oracle is not only thinking about Fusion Apps, but started to understand the value of seamless collaboration on the level of documents and spreadsheets. This can be an interesting move. Oracle announces Cloud Office. Here is what written on Oracle website:

Oracle Cloud Office is a Web and mobile office suite. It includes word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, and more. Based on Web open standards and the Open Document Format (ODF), Oracle Cloud Office enables Web 2.0-style collaboration and mobile document access and ensures compatibility with Microsoft Office file documents. Oracle Cloud Office is integrated with Oracle Open Office, which enables rich offline editing of complex presentation, text, and spreadsheet documents.

I found the following video interesting:

You can get some more information from Oracle Cloud Office data sheet. The following picture caught my interest. Oracle Cloud Office SaaS architecture.

Oracle PLM portfolio

Oracle’s PLM-related story includes few interesting facts that, in my view, need to be pulled together. After Agile PLM Software acquisition in 2007, Oracle boosted their PLM capabilities. In addition to Agile, Oracle also acquiredCimetry Systems – a provider of AutoVue viewer and collaborative application. During the last few years, I can see a constant effort from Oracle to develop PLM-oriented business apps as part of Oracle Fusion technology and strategy.

What is my conclusion? I think, Oracle focus to the collaborative application in style Oracle Cloud office , can be an interesting benefit for PLM implementations. The amount of Excel spreadsheets in PLM is huge and growing. The ability to handle them as part of the Oracle portfolio can provide some benefits to companies already paying a lot to Oracle. However, it might not bring new PLM customers to Oracle and they will follow Microsoft SharePoint PLM path. What is your opinion?

Best, Oleg

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PLM Innovation and Packaging Trajectories

December 18, 2010

Innovation is a popular word these days. It sounds modern and trending. Everybody wants to jump to this bandwagon. I found myself reading and listening a lot about innovation during last time. The best book, I can recommend you is Peter Druker’s bestseller – Innovation and Entrepreneurship. It was re-printed many times. You can buy one on Amazon for a price less than one buck. However, the book is exceptional.

I spent Thursday listening and talking about innovation in engineering software during COFES Israel Forum in Hilton Tel-Aviv. You can get an idea about who attended by navigating your browser to COFES Israelwebsite. Brian Shepherd of PTC brought the idea of packaging in PLM. It made me think about some interesting trajectories related to the innovation in general and more specifically in PLM.

Packaging and Roles

The idea is to split application into pieces and providing different applications to people in a company. It sounds to me as a blend of the old “role-based” portfolio and trending App Store ideas. The fundamentals of this model are very healthy, in my view. However, the execution of this “re-packaging” is mostly important. The ability of apps for inter-play and exchange information is one of the most critical aspects. The second will be usage of heterogeneous Apps coming from different vendors. As you can see the backside of flexible packaging is the same data problem. PTC has something called Common Data Model. You can listen Mike Campbell of PTC is speaking here about Creo Common Data Model. It will be interesting to see how it will be different from Dassault V6 platform.

Enterprise Open Source

Another idea how to charge people for PLM in a less painful manner. Aras Corp. is leading this PLM innovation. You can get PLM software for free – no associated license cost. However, you will be able to get extra services by paying maintenance, subscription and services. This model, re-package a very complicated PLM sales process as well lower entry barrier. An additional aspect of this innovation is to prove software maturity by enabling people to run free download and evaluation. The last is only half true, in my view. Yes, you can download for free. However, your organization time is not free. In most of the situations, you can have a free PLM software for evaluation from other PLM vendors.

Services

This business model started many years ago as ASP model. Later, it was renamed as “on-demand” and SaaS. Now this model is associated with so called “cloud” platforms. The leader of SaaS offering, San-Francisco based Salesforce.comis selling the software by charging service money per month/year contracts. PLM early innovators in this space is bom.com (later re-branded as Arena Solutions). To sell services is an interesting approach and provide some financial benefits. However, PLM by nature removes one of the most strong advantages of SaaS model – flexibility to stop service at any time. At the time your data will be locked into PLM database, you need to pay to both providers until you will transfer your assets in an alternative system.

What is my conclusion? Reading the same book by Peter Druker, you can find, innovation may happen in different places. Product, Technology, Services, Business Processes, Logistic and Business Model. Edward Lewis from Hollywood fairy tale Pretty Woman is buying up businesses to break them up and sell them off in piece with a profit. It is hard to sell large PLM Platform these days. PLM vendors are trying to find an alternative model, which will be more successful in 2010s. Services, Open Source, Re-packging – all these models have one single root – to find an appropriate way to match customer needs and product offering. The innovation is in a business model. However, the simplicity of products is probably the key to success.

Best, Oleg

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Cloud PLM and Small Manufacturers Survival Plan

October 1, 2010

While big OEMs are very visible, the majority of manufacturers are represented by small companies. The numbers are different in US and Europe, but my guess is that the number is in the range of 65-75%. How to address the need of these companies in coming years? This is one of the questions that frequently asked by many industry reviewers. One of the conclusions made after multiple conversations about Open Source PLM is that OSS will not become a silver bullet for small and medium size manufacturers. So, if OSS is out of the game, what if Cloud PLM can be a survival plan for a vast majority of small companies in manufacturing domain?

Cloud Computing and SME
I read an article in ComputerWeekly.com named Cloud Computing to explode SME market. Have a read and make your opinion. The article summarize opinions coming from 360 IT event that took place in London a week ago. I found few very interesting opinions about the role of cloud computing in SME market. I put few quotes below:

Cloud adoption could become more widespread in the small business sectorthan in larger organisations, said experts speaking at the 360IT event in London….”There are so many businesses already using Google services. Cloud services are the only way in the medium term for these businesses to access enterprise-class robustness and service. It will be huge,” he said. [Gregor Petri, adviser at CA Technologies.]….But Errol Rhoden, director at OEM Solutions, said security would remain an issueunless service providers do more to gain customers’ trust.

PLM Cloud Switch?
PLM was born for big companies to provide solutions to handle product development processes and lifecycle of design, engineering and manufacturing information. The complexity of this information is very high. For the last couple of years, I see a definite trend of software vendors to find alternative solutions for smaller companies. It comes in multiple forms – providing industry vertical practices, packaged out-of-the-box solutions and many others. Cloud (or OnDemand) business was considered problematic. Few companies experienced in PLM on the cloud and, in my view, didn’t find how to switch PLM into a cloud mainstream road. So, what changed now? In my view, small manufacturing companies will try to cut their IT costs by moving their infrastructure and computing assets to external cloud providers. PLM software vendors will be able to bundle PDM and PLM application into hosted IT stacks.

What is my conclusion? Small and medium manufacturers are experiencing tremendous pressure on how they optimize their information infrastructure and reduce IT costs. At the same time, they have an increased need to optimize their product development work. Massive movement of IT services to cloud can create a second chance for PLM software vendors to come with new type of solutions adopted to changed cloud environments. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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SaaS PLM – New, Complex, Expensive?

September 21, 2010

Last week I had healthy debates with one of my blog readers about different options to deploy PLM for the small manufacturing companies. Here is the part of this conversation

[...yet SaaS PLM presents a difficult decision for most engineering managers. "Do I want to have my company data hosted off-site or on-site?" The primary reason for answering "yes" is the perceived complexity of managing a PLM on-site. So we directly address that complexity, and give them a simple product - available as a subscription, if that's also an important benefit - which lets them keep their mission-critical data under their direct control. I'm sure it won't shock you that we also have a web page devoted to the on-site versus off-site debate: http://www.buyplm.com/best-plm-software-license-decision.aspx ...]

I recommend you to have a look of PDXExpert PLM website and make your opinion. The following passage is actually very interesting:

SaaS is new & complex… and complexity is expensive. On-demand PLM moves your product data into an off-site facility with out-sourced IT resources. The PLM application service provider (ASP) lets you to rent, rather than buy, your software as a service (“SaaS”). Your data is hosted off-site (in the “cloud”) where details like physical location, update schedules and network infrastructure are hoped to be irrelevant.

My experience with cloud applications in consumer space is slightly different. Almost all my moves to “cloud-base” option was driven by reducing of complexity. I can bring some, pretty obvious, examples. Migration from Microsoft Office to Google App allowed me to reduce a complexity of dealing with Microsoft Outlook, to forget about the complexity of handling Outlook pst and other local files. My files and emails are available now for every device in a seamless manner. Another case is Evernote. Previously, I used Microsoft Office tools. Evernote allowed me to capture notes simultaneously on multiple devices, synchronize them between devices and making them available for me at anytime. My last example is dropbox. I’m using dropbox for short time file sharing and exchange information between different devices. USB stick was a previous solution. Now, I can drop a stick in favor ofDropbox. No hassle, I shouldn’t care about USB sticks, viruses coming from Windows and can access it from multiple devices.

What is my conclusion today? The idea of SaaS is not new. We used to call it ASP, Hosted, OnDemand… Today it comes as SaaS. Some PLM vendors tried this option before with more and less success. Can we make a conclusion about SaaS PLM cases today? I think, it is still too early to drive a simple decision. Massive influence of consumer internet software, in my view, will influence individual and company decision makers towards SaaS solution. I’m interested to know what is your opinio and experience.

Best, Oleg

*Picture credit of The Hindu.

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What Are Demands for “PLM on Demand”?

May 27, 2010

Thanks to David Isenhower  for twittering a very interesting whitepaper from Siemens IT. The name of the paper is Software as a Service (SaaS) with Sample Applications. Yesterday, I was able to get this whitepaper without any registration using this link. One of the sample applications discussed in this paper was Siemens “PLM OnDemand” TeamCenter. I believe, this is a sort of visionary evaluation, since I never heard about existance of “PLM OnDemand” TeamCenter before. However, as it seems to me, author is discussing more demand rather than the available solution and presenting the view of Siemens IT on what should be the future implementation of PLM on demand.

It made me think about how PLM can be delivered on demand. I took the proposed vision of PLM on Demand from the whitepaper mentioned above and compared it to PLM Think Tank visionary proposal.

PLM on Demand: PLM “ready to use” industry solutions.
This is a short vision for Siemen’s IT vision. The white paper defines PLM as one of the conservative areas. Companies are always concerned about investments that need to be done in PLM project. It defines a potential demand for new type of PLM solution.

CIOs may see an opportunity to decrease the overall cost of PLM solution by moving to the cloud as On-Demand Services. “Companies are always less ready and willing to bury valuable developer resources in PLM projects for months. In no other corporate process is the wheel reinvented as often as with PLM, leaving significant potential idle at the same time“. Later, in more detailed way, it explained as “…As a special multi-tenant enabled SaaS solution, PLM on Demand bundles PLM industry solutions with high-quality operation and service in a package with a usage-based price model. Options enable the package to be adapted to individual business requirements. PLM on Demand is not only a new financing and operation model however.  It primarily involves the provisioning of a preconfigured PLM application tailored to the needs of an industry. The “price” for this advantage is that the scope of freedom for individualized customer configurations is limited…“.
In addition, I see the mention that PLM solution needs to have a specific industry orientation: “…the solution offered must also actually cover the typical business requirements of the sector. This depends significantly on the sector and process know-how of the provider…“.

Alternative: PLM Marketplace On Demand
Since, I’m taking a role of “Devil Advocate” on PLM Think Tank, I’d like to introduce an alternative version of how to get into Product Lifecycle Management solution on demand. I have to say that I share Siemens’ vision about demand for low TCO solution that may solve problems of manufacturers. However, I see the future in a different direction. The way the solution can be developed will be as following:

Cloud Based Data Storage
The economy of scale can propose a more efficient solutions to store and manage data online. Design, Bill of Materials and other data can be stored on cloud and easy distributed to customers. When typical corporate email storage varies between 500MB to 1TB, cloud can offer enough data to accumulate product and manufacturing information. Just compare it to 8-10GB of Google Mail storage. I believe very few companies will build new data centers in 2010s, so to move data into the cloud will become more natural.

Application Market Place
One size doesn’t fit all. I believe manufacturing represents a special kind of “long tail” and requires a granular set of solutions to solve their problems. If I’m looking on marketplaces proposed by Saleforce.com, new solution places developed Zoho and vision of Google Market Place, I can see it as a potential way to develop on demand services for manufacturers.

What is my conclusion? The PLM story on demand is still not discovered. I think, Siemens IT made an interesting try to present a potential for PLM on demand. It can be a choice for a big company. However, in this case, I don’t see how it will be different from delivery on premise solutions we have today. I’m looking forward to your comments and thoughts.

Best, Oleg

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