Cadalyst - January 2008 - (Page 39)

plmstrategies Goliath Reinvented PLM giants outfit themselves to battle for SMB market share. By Kenneth Wong A year ago, when I was planning my PLM (product lifecycle management) coverage for 2007, I envisioned something similar to the tale of David and Goliath. I’d look at how the smaller vendors and relative newcomers were grabbing market shares from the industry titans by catering to the underserved manufacturing communities. I had even sketched out my plot, pitting affordable, on-demand solution providers such as Arena and Agile against the big three: Dassault Systemes, PTC, and Siemens PLM (formerly UGS). Surveying the battlefield, however, I have come to realize the dynamics of the campaigns have changed. The big three have spawned their own versions of David to penetrate the small and midsize businesses (SMBs). Two of them — Dassault and PTC — are brandishing their own on-demand and software-as-a-service (SaaS) products. So I’m updating my script. It isn’t about David and Goliath. It’s about the giants that are learning to be nimbler, gentler, and friendlier to the little guys that can help or hurt their bottom lines. Affordable PLM from PTC; and UGS Velocity Series from Siemens PLM. Agile has been acquired by another giant. Not a PLM giant but an enterprise software giant: Oracle. Oracle and SAP (Oracle’s nemesis) have been inching toward the PLM market for some time now, and each has its own PLM package. With Agile safely tucked in its pocket, Oracle has an affordable product to pitch to the SMB crowd. However, it’s unclear whether that’s Oracle’s target market. During the Oracle OpenWorld conference in November, the company announced that Agile, now rebranded as Oracle’s Agile Enterprise PLM, is “being designed to be extended through open, standard-based [application integration architecture] to different enterprise components such as manufacturing and shop floor capabilities, ERP applications, supply-chain planning functionality . . .” Oracle’s press office didn’t respond to inquiries on the fate of the pre-existing Agile Advantage program, aimed at SMBs or Agile OnDemand. Testing the Water with On Demand In early 2006, PTC began offering its Windchill ProjectLink, Windchill PDMLink as IBM-hosted on-demand software. Jay Muelhoefer, vice-president and general manager of PLM on demand at PTC, explained, “75% or more of PTC’s customers are what you might call SMBs. Now, with global competition, we see many of the smaller companies facing the same product development and manufacturing challenges as big companies — working with people in multiple locations, outsourcing designs, doing a lot more work overseas. We started looking at what we could provide them. On demand was a natural fit. So we take the best practices from the Toyotas of the world and provide them as out-of-the-box solutions.” It’s difficult to judge how successful PTC has been during the past 12 months with its on-demand business. Muelhoefer was unable to provide statistics or revenue breakouts. The New Battlefield With a sizable IT budget and a large resource pool, a Fortune 500 company may be willing to tolerate — or even prefer — a lengthy, tailor-made PLM implementation that can be refined and perfected over several years. But money and time are luxuries the SMBs don’t have. They’re likely to find software implementations that cost less and promise a quick return on the investment more appealing. For the speed gain and affordability, they may even be willing to put up with some minor limitations (an interface that’s less than ideal for their industryspecific needs, for example). Consequently, when on-demand PLM vendors such as Arena Solutions and Agile appeared on the scene, SMBs were delighted. It wasn’t long before the big In this article three in PLM realAgile ized they were www.agile.com missing out. Now, Arena Solutions each has come www.arenasolutions.com out with its own Astoria Software SMB bundle. The www.astoriasoftware.com emphasis is on Dassault Systemes speed, as apparent www.3ds.com in the names and PTC the marketing literwww.ptc.com ature: CATIA PLM Siemens PLM Software (formerly UGS) Express from Daswww.siemens.com/ugs sault; Quick, Easy, Diving into SaaS Dassault may be a relative latecomer to the on-demand game, but if the high spirits with which Bernard Charles, Dassault’s president and CEO, introduced ENOVIA 3DLive is any indication of the vigor with which he will pursue this vision, the company could soon catch up with the frontrunners. In June 2006, Dassault launched the beta version of a Web-based PLM repository navigation application called ENOVIA 3DLive. This year in May, Charles enthusiastically introduced the application to the public at the annual CATIA Operator Exchange conference. Two months prior, in March, Dassault went to China, putting on a road show to promote its “latest SMB-oriented Express PLM solutions” (“Dassault Systemes PLM Express www.cadalyst.com | cadalyst | January 2008 39 http://www.agile.com http://www.arenasolutions.com http://www.astoriasoftware.com http://www.3ds.com http://www.ptc.com http://www.siemens.com/ugs http://www.cadalyst.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Cadalyst - January 2008

Cadalyst - January 2008 Contents Editor's Window Cad Central Chasing the Dolphins CAD that Won’t Break the Bank AliasStudio 2008 — Design and Visualization Software VectorWorks 2008 — CAD/BIM Authoring Software Dell Precision M4300 — Mobile Workstation What’s in Store for 2008? Low- or No-Cost CAD Goliath Reinvented Doin’ the DEED Cad Cartoon Issue Indexes The Return of Hot Tip Harry

Cadalyst - January 2008

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