3 Key Cloud Principles: Will CAD/PLM follow?

October 7, 2011

I’ve been watching what happens around Oracle Open World 11 earlier this week. Among multiple topics, the announcement about Oracle Cloud and controversy around cancellation of Mark Benioff’s keynote caught my attention. Oracle unveils “Oracle Public Cloud” and claims “no locking” there. You can read Oracle announcement here. Navigate your browser to the following Informationweek article to read more. Oracle announcement and Salesforce Mark Benioff canceled keynote raised lots of discussions about the cloud, options, single tenant vs. multi-tenant cloud solution and much more. Take a look on the following passage from Information Week about that:

Ellison underscored the difference between Oracle’s public cloud approach and Salesforce’s by saying a Java Enterprise Edition application would run in either Oracle’s or Amazon Web Services’ EC2 infrastructure, but it wouldn’t run in Salesforce’s. The Oracle cloud will be “open and standards based,” he said. “If you want Apex, that would be Salesforce,” he said, referring to Saleforce’s proprietary language. “The Salesforce.com cloud is kind of sticky. You can check in, but you can’t check out. It’s the roach motel of clouds,” he said. The contrary-to-Salesforce focus came just four hours after Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff held his own event next to Oracle OpenWorld where he attacked Oracle’s “single tenant” approach to selling software and its retro commitment to “Exadata mainframe machines.”

Here is Oracle’s definition of public cloud.

At the same time, Mark Benioff of Salesforce counter argument with Oracle about what is “True Cloud” solution. I’m not sure claiming ” true” or “false” is something that actually can apply. You can watch an interesting video Q&A where Benioff explains what means “true cloud” as well as shape out three key cloud principles.

3 Key Cloud Principles and CAD/PLM

According to Benioff, the following 3 principles are absolutely important when you are talking about cloud solutions. Here they are:

1- Portable Logic

2- Portable Data

3- Open API

I found these three principles resonated with some of my thoughts about how CAD/PLM cloud solutions can be organized. Yesterday, I was discussing Autodesk cloud announcements. Few weeks ago, I was trying cloud solutions from Dassault. It is very interesting to see if we can apply these 3 key cloud principles to CAD/PLM cloud solutions. Here are my initial thoughts.

Portable Logic

Nobody in CAD /PLM world is talking about portable logic. I believe this level of details is not available (at least to me). Both, Autodesk and Dassault are claiming to leverage Amazon’s AWS, which means for me virtualization on the level of server environment and not on the level of business logic and components.

Portable Data

This is even more interesting. Is it possible to get data from Autodesk cloud and place it to Dassault cloud? If we talk about CAD, we will be going back to discussions about CAD formats. If we talk about PDM/PLM solutions, the situation can be even more complex. Each data-management solution relies on proprietary data schema and servers. When it still not clear what will be core cloud data management solution for Autodesk, Dassault already announced that Enovia V6 is a platform to be used for all Dassault cloud products. How to make Enovia V6 data portable is another interesting question to discuss.

Open API.

It is, probably, the easiest topic and CAD/PLM providers are dealing with this already many years. A really interesting question – how many of APIs will be available on the cloud? I wasn’t able to find this information either.

What is my conclusion? I think CAD/PLM cloud battle is yet to come. Autodesk and Dassault are two major players on this scene and they are just gathering capabilities and checking arsenals of their cloud solutions. I’d expect next few years to be especially interesting to see how CAD/PLM vendors will develop cloud solutions and test it on their existing and future customers. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PLM and Social Enterprise: Files vs. People?

September 8, 2011

For the last couple of days, I’m digesting materials from the Dreamforce conference organized by Saleforce.com. I wasn’t able to make it this year, but the stream of online information and social networks clearly stated that this even last week in San-Francisco was felt almost like Oracle Open World, which is actually going to happen at the same place in one month.

Marc Benioff’s Social Enterprise

Salesforce.com CEO is pushing towards something he called “Social Enterprise”. I have to say, the term is still needed to be analyzed, and it sounds very “marketing” to me. However, in the explanations, Benioff defines social enterprise in three steps for every company:

1. Make full use of public social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter.
2. Create private social networks inside of organizations and among partners.
3. Developing social networking capabilities for enterprise applications.

In the following video Marc Benioff explains these three steps early this year during the Cloudforce event in Boston:

How PLM can get social?

In my view, “social” trends are clearly recognized in the PLM space. CAD and PLM vendors started to push some social buzzwords as well make some initial experiments. I can include few tools and announcements made by PLM vendors – Windchill Social Link, Dassault 3DSwYm, SAP StreamWork and few others. This list is not exhaustive. In addition to that, PLM vendors and service provide worked to provide socially oriented solutions based on usage of tools like SharePoint and some others.

Social PLM: Files vs. People

Social experiments of PLM vendors and huge Benioff Social Enterprise concepts made me think about some elements of PLM that actually can fit into the 3 steps roadmap proposed by a charismatic salesforce.com leader. The focus of PLM software is clearly on the step 3 and related how existing tools used by people in manufacturing company can be connected to social networking infrastructure.

PLM tools are doing a lot in collaboration. However, the topic of PLM collaboration for most of the cases is around so called “files” or associated “file data”. The multiple collaborative applications are focusing on how people can access data simultaneously or in an asynchronous way. Here is the main difference. Social enterprise is focusing on people as a major players in social interaction. Files and other data need to be at people disposal in order to communicate efficiently.

What is my conclusion? It is still hard to make a prediction about future Social Enterprise development. What is clear to me is that PLM and other systems involved into the overall enterprise social interaction have to find a right way to communicate and expose information to people. Similar to Facebook’s ability to to share files, new generation of CAD, PDM and PLM tools need to build this connection to accomplish the final step in Social Enterprise strategy. Do you think PLM vendors will play Social Enterprise game? A good question. Do you think salesforce.com will become an ultimate social platform? Btw, Salesforce just acquired web domain social.com for $2.6M. Big plans ahead… Just my thoughts.

Best, Oleg

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PLM and Social Technologies Dating?

February 18, 2011

In my view, Salesforce.com has been discovered a significant bias towards collaboration and collaborative software. Since last year Salesforce made strong focus on development and acquiring of collaborative technologies. Dimdim andManymoon are just two latest examples of Salesforce acquisitions. I read the following article on Read Write Web blog – Salesforce.com and Facebook Strengthen Ties Through Force.com Platform. I found this passage interesting:

Provide Technical design, configuration, development and testing of Force.com custom applications, interfaces and reports Model, analyze and develop or extend persistent database structures which are non-intrusive to the base application code and which effectively and efficiently implement business requirements Integrate force.com applications to other facebook external or internal Business Applications and tools Develop UI and ACL tailored to facebook employees and suppliers

What is behind this? The two companies are looking for app developers to write Force.com app for business purposes. Salesforce is an enterprise cloud leader. Facebook is a social network king. Both are interested in the opportunities coming out of this dating. Facebook is thinking how to proliferate into the enterprise space. Salesforce has an interest to make their social connections stronger. The last thing made me think about what PLM companies are doing in the social space.

PLM Collaboration and Social Dating

Product Lifecycle Management software vendors are developing so called "collaborative software" for years. In my view, the idea behind this software was good. However, the implementation cost and complexity weren’t appropriate. PLM needs to go outside the firewalls and make some "social dating" in Web 2.0 cafes. This is can be a good experience. I can see some movements in this space. DS 3DSwYm, PTC Social Product Development, Vuuch are examples of these "dating" experiments. The biggest problem of these dating, as I can see, is the try to take social technologies inside of enterprise product suites. The biggest value, in my view, is exactly opposite – to take "product content" out of current PLM databases. Fresh air will make some cleanup. The example of Autodesk Inventor Publisher for mobile is a right one. First make content available. Then magic will happen.

What is my conclusion? I found Facebook and Salesforce tie up interesting. This is a place for PLM vendors to learn, in my view. Try to invent yet another TLA won’t work anymore. Customers are looking for cool stuff similar to websites they are using during the weekend. Facebook may have some advantages here. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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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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How PLM Can Catch Up Cloud 2?

July 2, 2010

I have been discussing Cloud-related topics on PLM Think Tank actively since last year. I think, the term is hugely overloaded, I can see horizons where cloud becomes a kind of reality for engineering and manufacturing software. This is still not much real, up and running solutions. However, there is a constant stream of attention, awareness and trials that is coming from multiple providers in CAD/PLM space.

So, Cloud is coming and this is a perfect time to talk about… Cloud 2. It sounds crazy… huh? No, I don’t think so. On September 23, Salesforce.com released Salesforce.com Chatter. Mark Benioff and the team presented his vision of Cloud 2 on their conference couple of a month ago. I had chance to get some materials and videos about that reviewed during this week. It made me to think about some interesting behaviors and characteristics Salesforce’s Cloud 2 definition in the context of Product Lifecycle Management.

If you have time, take yourself on the following two videos, otherwise, proceed to my takeaways below.

Cloud 2: Takeaways

There is a huge shift happens in how we are using devices. The massive increase in notebook and mobility created a structural shift in how people are starting to use the internet. This is going to impact the environment in the offices and other professional zones.

Cost, ease of use, infrastructure, content creation, services are in the past of Cloud 1. The fundamental shift is going towards to the collaborative environment of the future – new devices, real time, social environment.

Thank you Amazon, welcome Facebook! This is another major shift in application behavior. It is worth reading some of Benioff’s posts about Facebook’s imperative.

Here are some of my Cloud-2 thinking about how it impacts PLM.

Organization Is Flat and Real-Timed
This is a major organizational shift that PLM needs to learn. Fewer processes, fewer hierarchies, fewer predefined events. More flexibility, ad-hoc, connections and real-time updates.

Product Data with no boundaries
Data need to be available to be able to collaborate on top of all ad-hoc processes. You cannot lock it down to formats, applications, departments. Company’s strategies on data lock-in and data protection are going to die under the pressure of customers to be able to collaborate and share.

Context, Context, Context…
The next king on the road is a context. To be able to work, contextually and having all what you need for decision making, becomes a key. It will be very interesting to see how to bring a new contextual formula to engineers in the organization.

What is my conclusion today? Cloud 2 is coming. Regardless on our agreement and disagreement on names, we are going to see a significant shift in the way application will be delivered and used in the social environment. The question is not how to develop social applications. The right question is how to help people to live in a new environment and achieve their operational goals?  Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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