Siemens PLM Catchbook is the tip of the iceberg

Siemens PLM is big, really big, with thousands of employees, dozens of product lines, 8 target industries, and lots of messages to convey in a 3+ day-long analyst event. I’ve been trying to come up with a single theme, or story to tell that ties it all up neatly for you … and find that the best way to take a first crack at it is via Catchbook, Siemens PLM’s about-to-be-released concept design and sketching app for your favorite tablet.

Siemens is usually seen as making stuff for the big guys —PLM; factory-wide controller technology; fancy visualization for huge, complex assemblies; PhD-level simulation technology targeted at  automotive and aerospace clients— that doesn’t necessarily scale well to smaller companies or other industries. That may have been true in the past, but it’s not the case today.  Analysts were treated to session after session that demonstrated that Siemens has strategies to target non-traditional customers with products, pricing and services to create faster time to value for all.

First, a bit of data: Siemens PLM says* its year-to-date, constant currency revenue growth was 10%, with CAx up 8%, cPDM up 16%, digital manufacturing up 8% and manufacturing operations management (the stuff moved from other parts of Siemens  into Siemens PLM last year), up 13%. On an as-reported basis (so not constant currency), total revenue was up 18%. There are acquisitions in this mix but they’re all relatively small (LMS was in 2012, and everything since has been smaller), so this growth is largely organic. For comparison, based on their most recent public statements, Dassault Systemes in July said that its year-to-date revenue was up 16% in constant currency as reported and 17% on a non-IFRS basis (but with a bunch of acquisitions; organic new license revenue was up 11% and maintenance was up 8%, both organic, constant currency, as reported). For the year-to-date, at the end of the second quarter, ENOVIA revenue was down 1% in constant currency. One can infer, in the absence of more data, that Siemens PLM is growing, to some extent, at Dassault Systemes’ expense. [This is also anecdotally true; I hear that a lot of longtime DS customers are investigating their alternatives because they’re not sure that a CATIA+ENOVIA V6 is for them. Accounts that were once DS locks are opening up to at least explore what’s out there.] But back to Siemens … Clearly, customers big and small are betting with their wallets that Siemens’ long-term strategy is something they can get behind.

So why should we focus on Catchbook? Catchbook is a sketching app that will be available for Windows, Android, and iOS tablets and smartphones later this Fall. You’ll be able to sketch, annotate, import and trace over photographs and so on — the idea being you’re hit by inspiration wherever you might be, and that a tablet-based app will enable more people to capture those ideas than sticking with CAD. But Catchbook comes with a D-Cubed 2D DCM engine inside, and creates dimensions, accurate lines and arcs and other shapes that make it easy to turn your concept into CAD. As Siemens explained it, Catchbook adds size and scale to sketches, and preserves their value as intellectual capital by moving forward into CAD. [Note: an earlier version of this piece said Catchbook was based on Parasolid. That’s incorrect and I regret the error. — Ed.]

There are lots of details about Catchbook here, but the basic gist is that you just start sketching, either freehand or over an image. You can have Catchbook turn your wobbly line or nowhere-near-round circle into precise geometries, if you want — or not. Your sketch and any accompanying images are stored in a binder, on pages. You can share specific pages in a PDF, or export it in lots of different formats to move it into NX, Solid Edge or other CAD programs when you need to.

Siemens PLM CEO Chuck Grindstaff says the company invested in creating Catchbook to create more engaged users, including those outside the traditional CAD domain. I can see lots of uses. Out in the field, needing rework? Take a picture, sketch on top of it and send it back to the office for detailed design and costing. Or trying to figure out why your supposedly IoT-enable device isn’t transmitting data? Draw and write over a photo to show and explain how the antenna is crumbled. Back a truck into a support column? Sketch over an image and ship it off to a contractor. As you can see from the image (courtesy of Siemens), the user has images and sketches, and is trying to lay out a living room. I’ve typically done that with paper cutouts so we can see that  …

Catchbook also moves people away from paper, which is hard to manage and collaborate around, and into digital, which can be tracked and stored in some sort of data mangmene system. Moving engaged users further into a digital world — Siemens PLM’s sweet spot.

Is Catchbook unique? According to Siemens, yes, because of its precise geometry capability and export to to so many CAD tools. Will Siemens displace Autodesk as a solution provider to hobbyists and makers? Unclear, but Catchbook’s $10 price tag clearly shows their willingness to price at a level that’s attractive to smaller businesses and individuals as well as to big enterprises.

“Engaged Users”, who have access to the right information at the right time and in the right context, is just one of the tenets for Siemens PLM’s “Smart Innovation Portfolio”. We’ll take a look at the others when we talk about the CAx, PLM and other topics covered at the analyst event — look for more in the coming weeks.

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* Note that the comparison to DS is a bit unfair. DS provides audited data to investors with a great deal of detail. Siemens PLM gives data points that aren’t tied to any public disclosures with real numbers. However, the same people have been at Siemens PLM from the days when it was a publicly-traded UGS and SDRC, and I don’t see them as dissembling here. But do read this critically; they disclose what they want us to know.

Note: Siemens graciously covered some of the expenses associated with my participation in the event but did not in any way influence the content of this post.