Happy Monday! Did you remember to change your clock on Sunday? If you’re in the US, you lost an hour of sleep this weekend. If you’re not, please understand that your US colleagues are sleep-deprived and feeling like we’re all an hour behind. We’ll get over it. Coffee helps. It’s the Economy … Economic news continues its good/bad cycle. A couple of weeks ago, we learned that Q4 was weaker than expected. Last week we learned that jobs grew by a surprising 175k in February, even as the US unemployment rate went from 6.6% in January to 6.7% in February. One economist calls it a “steady-as-she-goes recovery. Not fast enough, but not easy to derail”. That survey was from the US Labor Department; another, by Action Economics, found that the economy added 157,000 jobs last month. PLMish Deals, Earnings and Other News It was a slow earnings week, but there was quite a bit of other news. ExOne, a maker of 3D printing machines and owner of a number of 3D printing centers, announced that it made two acquisition. The first, the Gesellschaft für Industrielle Mikrowellentechnik (MWT), is manufactures industrial grade microwaves that ExOne says will help it expand its 3D sand production systems. These ovens aren’t like the one in your kitchen. They’re big conveyor belt (or table) systems that use high frequency electromagnetic waves to excite the water molecules in sand. This drives moisture out, creating a more perfectly dried core. That improves the casting quality for the molds and improves quality and reduces cost for certain types of components. ExOne has also acquired Machin-A-Mation, a Chesterfield, Michigan, specialty machine shop to complement ExOne’s existing production facility in Troy. ExOne spent $4.8 million for MWT and $5 million for Machin-A-Mation. Siemens Venture Capital invested $10 million in Polarion Software, creator of “the world’s fastest enterprise scale browser-based ALM solution”.  ALM stands for Application Lifecycle Management, the management of the embedded software that powers many (most?) products today. Polarion Software says it has “hundred of Global 1000 companies” as customers and “over 1 million users … daily”. ALM is a huge issue. We’re all comfortable managing component revs in bills of material. Adding software which may or may not be compatible with a particular hardware rev makes it difficult to ensure consistency and compliance across a fleet of cars, airplanes or iPhones. It’ll be interesting to see if/how Polarion’s products intersect with Siemens PLM‘s PLM solutions. This week also saw the launch of the Autodesk Foundation to offer financial, software and training support to design-focused nonprofits that address “epic challenges” in climate change, access to water, and healthcare. Grantees so far include KickStart International, MASS Design Group, D-Rev and the Auburn University’s Rural Studio. US Budget Continues President Obama continued his focus on manufacturing last week, presenting a 2015 budget to the US Congress that “invests in American innovation and strengthens our manufacturing base”. This includes growing the number of Manufacturing Institutes to 45 over the next ten years (including the ones announced a week ago), and strengthening the commitment to R&D by reforming and making permanent the Research and Experimentation Tax Credit to incentivize private-sector R&D. This budget is far from a done deal. In fact, Reuters began its news story by saying “U.S. President Barack Obama released his fiscal year 2015 budget request to Congress on Tuesday, and lawmakers will promptly ignore it.” But the President’s proposal does set an agenda and talking points — and manufacturing made it onto the short list. Link of the Week Do you read Lifehacker? It’s a site that posts or reposts an awful lot of stuff –everything from desktop wallpapers to how to make a better breakfast to html hacks– designed to streamline our lives. Every so often they post something really thought-provoking, like this piece on how app stores change how we look at software:

Perhaps because mobile came first, cheap app prices naturally translated to our computers. Many costly software titles became notably cheaper, bringing it into the hands of more customers.

But that lower cost hurt developers. While a free, open-source model has created some great things, many popular titles require teams that don’t come cheap. When revenue goes down because people simply decided to stop paying so much for software, it becomes difficult to maintain a well-paid team for the job. 

Writer Adam Dachis muses about the effect of app stores on software purchasing, quality, reviews and more — and suggests some improvements. Be sure to read the comments, too. What do you think? Do app stores change how you view software, its pricing and availability? If you manage users, do you see app stores as evil? — That’s it — you’re good to go. Let’s be careful out there* and have an awesome week! *Hill Street Blues reference