Autodesk, SolidWorks and Collaboration Renaissance

June 28, 2011

Brian Roepke of Autodesk brought my attention to Autodesk Nitrous Lab Project earlier this week. The context of this comment was about some Autodesk viewing technologies that don’t require any flash or plug-in. So, I decided to put my hands on Autodesk Project Nitrous this morning. When I’m still trying to figure out what is that viewer technology Autodesk is using there, Nitrous made me think about what is going with collaboration and cloud.

SolidWorks n!Fuze – PLM Collaboration Renaissance

Few months ago, I’ve posted about SolidWorks n!Fuze – a new cloud service coming from SolidWorks to help share and collaborate between engineers. I found interesting the way SolidWorks were planning to introduce this service. On the fundamental level, it is not introducing any particular new functions – you can load SolidWorks files and share them. So, what is new? The cloud storage based on Enovia V6 and completely new user experience.

SolidWorks n!Fuze was in Beta testing few months after SolidWorks World 2011. I had a chance to play with that. The user experience was good. The service is not available now. According to the information provided during SolidWorks World, it will be released later this year.

Autodesk Nitrous – a dropbox for CAD files?

Project Nitrous provides a very simple set of functions: upload files, upload new revisions, manage folders, preview, tag and comments. Take a look on few screenshots I made during my tests. The subscription to the service was easy and straightforward. You are getting 1GB of data when you register with Autodesk ID.

The home screen is simple. You can get to the list of file or folders, comment, sort, filter and tag.

Viewer is integrated into a web browser.

I found versioning function a bit strange. It wasn’t clear if it keeps separate copies of the file. When uploading a new version of file, I was alerted that name of the file was changed. The overall it gave me a history of versions in a separate screen.

Autodesk Nitrous is available as Labs product. You can register and use it now. Navigate to the following link to subscribe.

What is my conclusion? CAD and PLM vendors are thinking about the cloud. Looking on services like Dropboxand some others, SolidWorks, Autodesk and others are trying to create similar services adopted to the CAD content. In my view, these are just experiments by CAD companies about how to leverage cloud and relevant infrastructure. Will real customers end up by adopting these services? I’m not sure. Security is still the issue for most of them. At the same time, newcomers like GrabCAD are working on a bit different flavor of cloud libraries containing publicly shared CAD models. GrabCAD is helping engineers to sell their work and services online. A different aspect of collaboration maybe?

Just my thoughts..
Best, Oleg

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PLM, Cloud and Open Source Separation?

June 2, 2011

Cloud and Open source are two topics I’m often touching on my blog. In my view, these two trends are notable if you think about where PLM innovation is going these days. Two years ago, I wrote – SaaS and Open Source: PLM Future Rides. We can see what happened since then.

Cloud services getting some traction. PLM vendors are trying to tap into cloud delivery by introducing focused applications or product. Recent SolidWorks announcement about n!Fuze is one of them. I covered it in my post SolidWorks n!Fuze – Cloud Remake of PLM Collaboration? Autodesk made few bold statements about the cloud with the announcement of Infinite Computing ideas. If you have some more time, you can read my post PLM vendors and cloud strategy where I’m shared my view on major PLM vendors cloud strategy. In parallel, for the last couple of years, I can see valuable development around PLM and Open Source. Some of my post on this includes PLM Open Source: Strategic or Off Road and PLM Wood and Open Source Termites.

Open Source and Vendors lock-in

The issue of vendor lock-in is well known in CAD/PLM world. For many years, the relationships between CAD/PLM vendors and customers was almost similar to "catholic marriage". I learn something new recently. It was about tight dependencies between cloud and open source. Navigate your browser to the to the InfoWorld.com article“Why the Cloud Can’t Be Separated From Open Source”. I found the following passage interesting:

“According to Michael Skok of North Bridge venture Partners, a firm specializing in open source funding, one of the chief customer objections to the cloud is the high potential for vendor lock-in.” Open source technology provides an obvious solution to the vendor lock-in dilemma.

I want to bring some examples of notable open source programs. Navigate to OpenStack – you will discover the program that employs open source and cloud. I can see a quite impressive list of companies, including Dell, Cisco, NASA, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. It is hard to dismiss the significance of cloud and open source when you see these names.

PLM Cloud and Open Source Options

It made me think about future potential of PLM, Cloud and Open source to play together. Aras PLM is one of the cloud innovators in this space. I’ve been visiting their ACE 2011 earlier last month. One of the hints Aras made was about their switch towards Linux and other Open Source platforms such as MySQL, On the showcase of ACE 2011 partners presented solutions leveraging some other open source technologies – Lucene and Solr. At the same time, Aras made an announcement about the availability of Aras platform on the cloud.

What is my conclusion? Most of the people are thinking about PLM and Open Source from the narrow "price" standpoint. In my view, the perspective is much wider and covers un-locking from vendors as well as future cloud expansion. Just my thoughts… What is your take?

Best, Oleg

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PTC, SolidWorks and Windchill PLM Success.

March 1, 2011

I read Martyn Day article The Jim Heppelmann Interview. Mr. Heppelmann shared his thoughts about different aspects related to PTC, CAD, PLM and competitors. Read this interview and make your opinion. Here my favorite passage from this interview related to comparison between Windchill and SolidWorks:

“Windchill is doing exceptionally well and just to put it into perspective – I think we all look at SolidWorks as a great business for Dassault Systemes and Windchill’s substantially more successful than SolidWorks. While SolidWorks was launched in 1996, and I think it’s a $350 million dollar business right now, Windchill was launched in 1998 and it’s going to be a more than $500 million business this year. So Windchill is 1.5 times more successful than SolidWorks from that perspective.

One of Mr. Heppelman’s conclusions is that PTC becomes a "Windchill company". Here is the quote:

So, to some extent we really have become the ‘Windchill PLM’ company because that’s become as big now as everything else combined.

What is my take? I have to agree with Mr. Heppelman. SolidWorks is a very successful business. What is also remarkable is the mainstream character of SolidWorks business. I think, the note about Windchill success is an interesting confirmation about mainstream character of PLM business in general and PTC success in PLM business during the past few years. Another interesting question is what role Windchill component will play in the future Creo product line announced by PTC few months ago?

Just my thoughts…
Best, Oleg

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SolidWorks n!Fuze: The Cloud Remake of PLM Collaboration?

January 26, 2011

This week SolidWorks presents the new product SolidWorks n!Fuze. The actual presentation didn’t happen yet. Today is the 3rd day of SolidWorks World. The 3rd dayGeneral Session is usually devoted to Product presentations. After that, I’m going to join the press conference with executive management of DS SolidWorks Corp. So, I hope to learn more about SolidWorks n!Fuze. What I learned so far was from SolidWorks Blog, my conversation with Rich Allen of SolidWorks and demo I’ve seen in the exhibition hall.

n!Fuze- First Impression

SolidWorks n!Fuze is a product that helps engineers to share SolidWorks data. What I specially like is the simplicity of user experience as well as the integration inside of the main user interface of SolidWorks. It means an engineer don’t need to leave SolidWorks to share data with somebody else. The core principle of n!Fuze data sharing relies on the ability to create Workspace and share data inside of this workspace. You can upload and download files from the Workspace. Basic revision mechanism allows you to provide an update to file in a workspace. Changes will be tracked using some characteristics. SolidWorks people in the exhibition hall explained me that n!Fuze can use multiple criteria, including last save date to manage versions. Earlier, I learned that version mechanism planned in n!Fuze will be very simple and not supposed to cover all possible options available in Enterprise PDM. The interesting functionality I noted in n!Fuze is the ability to leave comments about files and read the full chain of comments. This functionality reminded me DS 3DLive chat and some elements of Windchill SocialLink. If I’d use modern slang, it can be considered as “social feature”.

In addition, to the n!Fuze functionality embedded in SolidWorks, there is a separate web application. This application allows you to navigate, comment and download files. It surprised me that I cannot upload files directly from web interface, and I need to have the SolidWorks Application to load files into n!Fuze.

SolidWorks n!Fuze and Enovia V6

The important thing you learn is that n!Fuze is the first SolidWorks product using Enovia V6 functionality. Enovia foundation or server is hosted (I assume somewhere on the cloud) and support everything n!Fuze is doing. My hunch we’ll see more SolidWorks data management application using the Enovia V6 infrastructure. On the last year SolidWorks World I learned that future PDM products such as Enterprise PDM will be shifted to use Enovia V6 platform as well. You can see another sign of shared Dassault infrastructure on n!Fuze web application – swym.3ds.com beta 2011 sign on the bottom of the slide.

n!Fuze and SolidWorks Labs

SolidWorks Labs activity was a bit slow during the last year. However, I notices the use of SolidWorks Labs TreeHouse 2application embedded into the functionality of n!Fuze. This is a good confirmation of a collaboration between Labs and SolidWorks R&D.

n!Fuze and Collaboration

In my view, n!Fuze is introducing a fresh look on PLM and collaboration. On one side, it does not create something significantly new. The concepts of file sharing remain the same for the last 10-15 years. I can see similar collaborative functionality is available in portfolios of other PLM vendors as well as in old portfolios of Dassault System’s PDM products. However, slick user interface, integration into SolidWorks and social features like discussion give a new trajectory to this type of application.

What is my conclusion? The collaboration topic in PLM is still a place where we will see lots of innovations. The attempt to remake some old concepts to a new reality is a good sign in my view. I can see “cloud” concepts, focus on usability and introducing of social elements as right steps toward converting n!Fuze into something useful. However, I have to note that some functionality of n!Fuze will create an overlap with existing Enterprise PDM features. Users have a tendency to push the limits of product can do from the functional standpoint, and I can see people can use n!Fuze as a basic PDM on the cloud. Just my thought…

Best, Oleg

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SolidWorks: From Files To PLM?

January 24, 2011

SolidWorks World 2011 is about to start, and I’m preparing to learn about what SolidWorks and partners are up to this year. I will take a special look this year on different aspects of SolidWorks data management – from Files to PDM / PLM solutions.

What is presented?

As part of my preparation for SolidWorks World, I counted about 22 sessions in the section of Data Management. The sub-sections are Enterprise Data Management, Personal File Management and Team Management. The large number of sessions are focusing on different aspects deployment, implementations and functions of SolidWorks Enterprise PDM. This is clearly the mainstream system for SolidWorks today. In addition to that, I found few interesting sessions presenting new solutions and approaches coming from SolidWorks – Experience Web-Based Data Sharing by Dan Burmenko and Data Management on the Cloud by Rich Allen. I hope to join these sessions and share my thoughts about what I learned.

Partners Pavilion?

There are 15 companies demonstration solution on SolidWorks World related to management of SolidWorks files and different aspects of data management. Navigate your browser on the following link. There are two categories of companies – Data Management and PDM/PLM. The differentiation is not clear to me. I can see companies in Data Management categories as service providers (Razorleaf and Zero-Wait State). On the other side companies like Infor and360 Enterprise Software are providing wider scope of enterprise solutions – from PDM/PLM to ERP. Separate section about PDM/PLM is presenting 11 companies (including Dassault Systems and Dassault SolidWorks Corp.) providing different data management solutions for SolidWorks customers. Most of the names are well known in this list – Softech Inc., MechWorks, KeyTech. Cideon is coming with the solution oriented on SAP customers. Synergis presents their Adept system. Aras presents Enterprise Open Source PLM, which is according to their booth "compliment and extend Enterprise PDM". I hope to learn about this "complimenting EPDM" later today during my one-to-one meeting with Aras’ CEO Peter Schroer.

SolidWorks and Enovia V6

I didn’t find any mentioning of Enovia V6 in presentations. Dassault Systems is presented by separate booth where I found demos of Enovia V6 and examples of how Enovia manages SolidWorks data. It will be interesting to see how Enovia solutions and technologies will evolve to provide broader support to the future of SolidWorks data management products.

What is my conclusion? The most important question, in my view, is where SolidWorks / Dassault will be going from the current status quo towards the V6 based systems. Current systems, such as Enterprise PDM and some others are very mature and well developed from the standpoint of user experience and customer needs. Future Dassault and SolidWorks decisions will influence all other players providing solutions for File Management, PDM and PLM in the future. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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SolidWorks Lifecycle Management

January 8, 2011

Bertrand Sicot appointed CEO of SolidWorks. In my view, it becomes a corporate news of this week. I think, almost all CAD-affiliated bloggers wrote something about this event. The death of SolidWorks by Develop3D is the article you definitely need to read. My favorite article was SolidSmack’s interview with Bertrand Sicot and Jeff Ray. This is my favorite passage from Josh Mings’ interview:

About this change, I don’t see a big reaction in the user community. (Few of the users I work with could even name the former or current CEO of SolidWorks much less, even care.) Jeff took the company one direction, for the most part, aligning it with Dassault and positioning it for growth in that context. Bertrand, being the second person hired on with Dassault Systemes, I believe will follow that strategy. In that sense, DS SolidWorks Corp. stays separated from the customers. Whereas before, with Jon Hirschtick and Johnny Mac, it felt more personal, like a friend was running the company. My one hope is that Bertrand gets a sense of this. Go ahead, finish pushing SolidWorks into DS, but remember the roots man, remember the roots.

The notion of “roots” is one that important, in my view. Thinking about corporate changes, I’m always getting the association with the “lifecycle”. So, I decided to put some thoughts in the context of SolidWorks lifecycle.

Platform: Past and Future

SolidWorks was born on Windows. It was an ultimate match going back in 1995. However, nothing stands still in the world of computing platforms. To be able to react, SolidWorks will have to re-born on the cloud and adopt to other platforms. As I mentioned in my PLM Reset 2011 article, polygamy is one of the trends today. Microsoft’s dominance is going down. Obviously, SolidWorks will have to follow this trend

From Parasolid to DS Kernel

Another element of SolidWorks fundamentals – Parasolid Geometrical Kernel. The kernel belongs to Siemens PLM – a high profile competitor of Dassault. Some signs of changes in this direction were identified a year ago by Deelip.comduring SolidWorks World 2010. It confirms the fact SolidWorks is switching a geometrical kernel and moving to DS/CATIA kernel. It is another revolutionary shift in everything SolidWorks need to accomplish.

From PDMWorks to V6

SolidWorks has many PDM and PLM partners developing various PDM options and applications. However, PDM Works / Enterprise is the flagship PDM product for SolidWorks. What happens in this space? According to the announcement DS/SolidWorks made on the SolidWorks 2010, SolidWorks is going to develop a set of new applications on top of new DS V6 platform. Some of them were previewed that week. This is the third fundamental shift in everything SolidWorks will try to accomplish in PDM space.

What is my conclusion? I definitely can see a new chapter in what SolidWorks needs to accomplish in coming years. The potential fundamental changes coming from multiple directions – platform, geometry, PDM. I tend to agree with Josh – remember the roots is important. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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PLM and COFES Israel: People Just Want to Drink a Beer!

December 18, 2010

Last three days I spent my time with COFES Israel. Navigate your browser to the following link to see agenda and people attended the event. The main topic of the event was about Software for Engineering and Innovation. Videos and presentations from the event will be available later. Two days before early COFES attendees from outside of Israel had a chance to visit Israeli companies and office of some foreign companies located in Israel such as Microsoft Israeli R&D Center in Herzlia,IBM Israel Lab in Haifa.

I visited Israeli company OptiTex providing CAD and manufacturing solutions for textile and fashion industry. Spend some time on their website with such a great set of examples of their technological innovation. I specially liked the red dancing dress by OptiTex.

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Andreas Vlahinos of Advanced Engineering Solutions presented some interesting statistics and visualization showing income per person comparison and growth between Israel and USA for the last seventy years.

Fielder Hiss of Dassault SolidWorks spoke about platform shifts, predictive computing and sustainability. The following slide definitely shows you the inside preparation of SolidWorks to run their product on any device.

I gave my top rank to the slide from the presentation of Brian Shepher of PTC. The complexity is one of the biggest problems of PLM. However, like Brian said – people just want to drink a beer. In my translation – people just want to get a job done.

PTC has some ideas about how to change the status quo. Their new Creo products supposed to solve this problem in the future. Navigate to the following link to read my thoughts about PTC Creo.

I’m going to give some additional thoughts later today about PLM innovation inspiring talks I had during this week in Israel. Best, Oleg

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Do I Need An Invitation To Join CAD/PLM Cloud?

February 5, 2010

Last week was very cloudy in Southern California. I’m sure you understand…  I’m talking about SolidWorks World 2010 in Anaheim, CA. It was time when SolidWorks presented their technological preview and first SolidWorks PLM on the cloud (SolidWorks Product Data Sharing). However, I want to start from a very interesting twitter message I’ve got at the time SolidWorks presented.


I can understand this twitter message from Arena. Arena was the pioneering cloud PLM solutions since early 2000s. It was called OnDemand back that time.  Finally, cloud apps started to appear in the mainstream presentations of vendors like Autodesk and SolidWorks. However, read Arena’s message and blog. Arena is looking how to organize work between SolidWorks’ new cloud solution and Arena’s Bill of Material products online. And this is very interesting turn that requires future discussion and understanding.

Interoperability Tabu and Cloud Openness
This is one of the most widely discussed and prohibited topics in CAD/PLM industry. In the very competitive world, CAD and PLM companies have hard time to maintain communications, formats and data exchange to provide a solution to their customers. However, introducing of cloud can bring a new voice in the story of interoperability. Internet and cloud, obviously perceived as the most open space. It will be very interesting to see how CAD/PLM solution on cloud will develop their openness skills in the future.

How Many Clouds Do We Need?
This is the question that I had in my mind when I’m thinking about future PLM cloud solutions. What will be the communication in the cloud and between clouds? How customers using SolidWorks will be able to use Arena PLM solutions? How SolidWorks on cloud will work with apps from Salesforce.com? How multiple CAD systems on cloud can be connected to the cloud solution from PLM and ERP vendors that I’m sure will depart to the cloud universe?  Those and many other questions I have in my mind. I’m sure we are about the right time to start discussing it.

What is my conclusion today? In my view, the cloud time is coming. We will see massive introduction of first solution on the cloud from CAD and PLM vendors. However, I hope we will not create multiple “PLM clouds” in the way we created multiple CAD files and PLM Databases. I hope, we’ll find a better solution to do so. Just my thoughts…

I’m looking forward to have more cloud-related discussions with you. And I posted about cloud before. If you haven’t had chance to see them, take a look below:

Cloudy PLM: Roadmap Into The Future

PLM Architecture: Get Off My Cloud?

Where is PLM on Industry Cloud Map?

Where is the PLM shortcut to the cloud?

Should PLM take Excel to the Cloud?

Host PLM Data using Cloud Services

How will PLM applications change when they move to a cloud?

Best, Oleg

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PLM Prompt: SolidJott – way to integrate social tools in CAD?

July 22, 2009

I’m looking on SolidJott plug-in for SolidWorks. My opinion, that social tools need to be integrated into CAD environment. The main question, I’m asking -what is practical way to do so?

Solidworks SolidJott plug-in

I’ve been looking on few examples of social tools integration into CAD and design environment. Starting from joke-like-twitting-SpaceClaim and up to serious Vuuch concepts.

So far, I liked approach SolidJott is taking… Immersive, Connecting and Social. What do you think about?

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PLM Prompt: SolidWorks Sustainability Xpress will embed more lifecycle data in CAD

June 22, 2009

Another interesting blog post this morning about SolidWorks Sustainability Xpress coming soon on SolidWorks Labs. You can see video. What impressed me 1/ immersive data integration into SolidWorks CAD environment; 2/ ability to analyze full lifecycle of product from designer standpoint. There are some Product Lifecycle Management roots in this story well translated for SolidWorks user. What is confusing a little is that part of video demo run on Mac OS…

Will be interested to hear your voices? Do you see more designer support data came integrated into CAD environment?

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