COFES 2012: Clouds in the desert

Apr 18, 2012 | Hot Topics

COFES, the Congress on the Future of Engineering Software, takes place in the Arizona desert each April. Usually, the sun is glorious, the birds sing, the rabbits hop and the 300 or so attendees scurry between sessions and meetings, with the occasional pause by a pool...

3D Systems expands into aero, medical

Apr 17, 2012 | Hot Topics

The news just keeps on coming — clearly, the engineering software space is in the throws of a massive acquisition binge. Today, 3D Systems announced that it has acquired Paramount Industries, a direct manufacturing and product development solutions provider to...

CENIT & Softech: Mixed pictures

Apr 17, 2012 | Hot Topics

Yesterday was a really busy news day, what with earnings news from AVEVA, CENIT and Softech and the merger of Objet and Stratasys– not to mention trying to write future posts about COFES, Rulestream and CD-adapco’s user conference –and so a couple of items...

AVEVA’s fiscal 2012: “strong finish”

Apr 16, 2012 | Hot Topics

AVEVA today offered a sneak preview of its performance during the September 2011 – March 2012 portion of their fiscal year. Full results will be announced on May 28. The wording of the announcement makes it a bit difficult to parse, with not-particularly-glowing...

Makers: Objet and Stratasys merge

Apr 16, 2012 | Hot Topics

Last week, 3D Systems acquired My Robot Nation as it continues to broaden its reach to the consumer maker market. Today, Stratasys and Objet further heated up the 3D printing market on news that they would merge their two companies into the Stratasys brand. It’s a...

DDD acquires My Robot Nation

Apr 11, 2012 | Hot Topics

The move to bring ever more technology into the hands of makers picked up a bit more steam yesterday, as 3D Systems Corp. (DDD) announced that it has acquired My Robot Nation, a web platform that enables users to design and manufacture their own toy robots. It’s quite...

Why do companies preannounce?

Apr 10, 2012 | Hot Topics

A couple of readers have emailed and tweeted to ask: Why does a company like PTC rush to announce bad news? After all, they reason, releasing the news now or later doesn’t change the ultimate outcome: PTC’s results are what they are, the stock price probably would...

PTC hits a “substantial pothole”

Apr 9, 2012 | Hot Topics

I go away for a few days, and what happens? PTC starts earnings season off very early with a bit of bad news. It’s nothing fatal, and not even all that remarkable a shortfall but even so, the company’s shares fell as much as 23% on the news. Basically, a large deal in...

MuM’s 2011 shows a VAR in transition

Apr 4, 2012 | Hot Topics

Mensch und Maschine last week gave formal, final results for 2011 that confirmed its earlier disclosure and provides more details — but the big takeaway is that MuM’s new strategy appears to be working. Over the last 18 months or so, MuM has sold off much of its...

CD-adapco: Bikes, cars and so much more

Apr 3, 2012 | Hot Topics

Did you know that the weight of a bicycle becomes relevant only when the grade of the road you’re riding on is 8% or higher? The bike’s aerodynamics come into play on flats, uphills and downhills and, it turns out, have a significantly greater impact on a...