PTC and Ansys DON’T preannounce
What a strange time, when it's notable that companies just go ahead and schedule their earnings releases as per normal, like PTC did today (for April 29), or craft a special letter to investors that ends with the earnings date, as Ansys just did. PTC's news said...
How you can help: support businesses that make PPEs
You don't come here for politics, so we'll leave all that aside, and point out that many businesses that are working to make personal protective equipment (PPEs), often without knowing if or how they'll be paid. I found this article in the Boston Globe, which...
DS announced Q1 will be 2.5-5% below guidance
And so it starts (continues, depending on your perspective); After the stock market in Paris closed, Dassault Systèmes announced that it expects Q1 revenue to be 2.5% to 5% below the low end of its previous guidance, which was for 20% revenue growth. Not all of that...
How you can help: Join the GrabCAD ventilator challenge
This just came in from Stratasys -- can you help? A dozen Boston area anesthesiology residents have launched an eight-week hackathon hosted on GrabCAD.com to design a rapidly deployable, minimum viable mechanical ventilator for patients with COVID-19-related...
Hexagon’s take on 2020? Less confident than in February
Just yesterday I posted a quick note on Nemetshek's muted optimism for 2020 and RIB's lack thereof. Then, later in the day, Hexagon announced that it plans to delay a decision on paying a dividend, in an effort to keep cash on hand in case it's needed. What does THAT...
At least in AEC, 2020 looks … OK
European companies report preliminary results for a financial year in February and then follow up with a final report at the end of March. Nemetschek and RIB Software reported on schedule (see the reports here and here, respectively) --and 2019 was a very, very good...
How you can help: print PPEs with Carl Bass
I'll add this to the master list in a moment, but don't want this to get lost (and I haven't figured out how to make that post stay on top, and and and): Ray Kurland emailed me to say that Carl Bass (former CEO of Autodesk and maker extraordinaire) is printing...
How your tech skills can help in the pandemic
The world may be a sucky place right now, but people are (mostly) awesome. Protocol just published a list of projects that can use your/my/everyone's tech wizardry. That inspired me to go through my inbox and pick out all of the other ones I've been emailed about so...
AVEVA adds production accounting toolset
AVEVA just announced that it has acquired accounting software from MES Enter to, as the company puts it, "complete AVEVA’s value chain optimization solution". The new AVEVA Production Accounting (fka MES ENTER ErrorSolver) becomes part of AVEVA's Value Chain...
ESI on the impact of Covid-19: “It’s a 3-month event”
ESI Group held an investor update today, in which they expanded on the 2019 results reported last month. (You can read my recap here.) I'll write more about the company's vision, strategy, etc. as discussed in today's session, but I wanted to share one very important...
Totally OT: Capybaras balance oranges
I could (and probably should) write something PLMish but let's save that for later. Instead, I'm going to share a moment of zen, courtesy of HIRO@sea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUqCWkPlLLc If you speak Japanese, you can understand the naturalist's explanations;...
Funny & wise from Mel Brooks’ family as we all try to flatten the curve
Last one for today, I promise. Too good not to share: https://twitter.com/maxbrooksauthor/status/1239624352305303552 The title image is of a much younger Mel Brooks, in the classic movie, Spaceballs. So goofy.
PLMish ideas on whiling away social isolation
Right up front: I'm not qualified to give medical advice so you won't see any of that here. Go to cdc.gov, who.int, or another reputable source for the protocols that will ensure your safety and that of elders and those with compromised immune systems. That said, why...
Hexagon adds CAEfatigue to simulation portfolio
Coronavirus or not, business seems to crank along, even if at a slower level. Hexagon today announced that it is acquiring CAEfatigue Limited, a provider of fatigue simulation solutions. Hexagon's explanation of why fatigue matters is interesting: they use an...
Quickie: Autodesk extends sale of multi-user subs to August, pushes back named user start date
I wrote last week that Autodesk was going to start transitioning customers to named user licenses in May. A couple of readers shared a change to that policy from Autodesk's CEO Andrew Anagnost, in a note about the company's response in the time of Covid-19: [W]e are...
Bentley ups the ante on BIM CDEs, acquires UK’s GroupBC
Bentley Systems just announced that it has acquired GroupBC, the UK-based maker of the BC Projects and BC Enterprise SaaS solutions. You may know that the UK leads the world in BIM focus and implementations, which has spawned a lot of tools to help projects reach...
Autodesk’s anti-piracy efforts finally pay off – oh, and the looming end of maintenance
We've had a bit of an earnings bottleneck here at Schnitger Corp. HQ, but let's see if we can get caught up before more news rocks our world. You are washing your hands while humming Happy Birthday twice or the chorus from Stayin' Alive, right? You could do CPR to...
Ansys acquires Lumerical for photonics ICs
Ansys just announced that it will acquire Lumerical, maker of the DEVICE suite of component-level simulation products for modeling the optical, electrical and thermal effects in the performance of photonic integrated circuits. What's a photonic integrated circuit?...
Super-quick, the VIX volatility index is … crazy
I wrote about Bentley's potential IPO a few weeks ago and mentioned that the company had, in its last possible IPO, told me that it looked at the VIX index to help determine the exact timing of a sale of its shares. Not going into that again, but this week's sell-off...
Hexagon adds Romax for electric drivetrain MBSE
Hexagon just announced that it will acquire Romax Technology Limited, maker of the Romax Nexus suite of solutions for concept design, durability, NVH and other simulations for electromechanical drivetrain design and simulation. Nexus is a cloud-enabled model-based...
