Bentley’s been busy, creating the Acceleration Fund, building Virtuosity and buying a Maximo reseller
Did you know that Bentley has an Acceleration Fund? Me neither! But it, and the company, have been making newsworthy announcements over the last few days. Yesterday, Bentley announced that its Acceleration Fund has acquired Cohesive Solutions, the largest North...
More good-ish PLMish news, this time from Hexagon
Hexagon just announced that it will report BETTER results than the market expects for its June-ending quarter. Here's what they said: Due to higher earnings than market expectations for the second quarter of 2020, Hexagon is today publishing its preliminary results....
Super quick: no PLMish pre-announcements yet, and PTC says things are … good
You probably know that a lot of companies' financial quarters ended on June 30 and many of us have been waiting for announcements --good or bad-- to give a preview of what to expect when the financial news starts flying later this month. So far, the news isn't awful....
And it’s a wrap: Preventing virtual conference fatigue
At some point, I'll muster the energy to write about what I learned but right now I'd like to tell you about the experience of sitting through online user events from Altair, ANSYS, AVEVA, Bentley, Hexagon, PTC, SAP, SAS, Siemens, and Tech Soft 3D -- in addition to...
Quickie: Siemens adds UltraSoC to its semiconductor design offering
Siemens just announced that it will acquire UltraSoC Technologies Ltd., maker of instrumentation and analytics solutions that "put intelligent monitoring, cybersecurity, and functional safety capabilities into the core hardware of system-on-chip (SoC)". UltraSoC...
Respond. Reset. Reimagine.
I've been talking to a lot of people about how Covid-19 has affected their work lives--often inseparable from their home lives, given the sudden explosion of home offices and homeschooling--and it generally comes down to these three phases. First, we went a little...
AVEVA enters fiscal 2021 betting on digitalization
As foreshadowed back in April, AVEVA today reported revenue of £834 million up 9% (and up 7% on an organic, constant currency basis, cc). CEO Craig Hayman and Deputy CEO/CFO James Kidd gave a lot of great, additional information on how the world and their business...
Bentley buys voice-based construction app maker
Bentley Systems just announced that it has acquired NoteVault, which makes voice-based solutions for construction management. Start NoteVault on your mobile device, speak into it, and the app's construction-specific machine learning (backed by human transcription)...
Stratasys announces a 10% workforce reduction
I just put up the post about no PLMish layoffs -- and Stratasys puts out a press release that says that it will cut its global workforce by about 10%, mostly before the end of June and all by the end of the summer. CEO Yoav Zeif says, “This reduction in force is a...
Q1 2020 earnings are done –phew– what did we learn?
Well, that's a wrap. All PLMish companies have announced earnings, and it's time to look back, summarize and look ahead. Writers call that a through-line, finding the theme that unifies a narrative. And, for once, we have quite a few of through-lines in our PLMish...
Totally OT: Cocktails, curators, The Frick
I've told you before that my favorite museum in the world is The Frick Collection, in New York. I'm late to the party but just discovered that they're hosting a YouTube series on Friday afternoons, at 5 PM ET, where a curator talks about a major work. It's not at all...
Autodesk’s Q1 was decent, hints at stable employment at its customers
Autodesk announced its fiscal first quarter (ended April 30, 2020) last night --and, as others have reported, it was a rollercoaster ride. The details: Total revenue for FQ1 was $886 million, up 20% as reported (up 22% in constant currencies) and well within the range...
European AEC software: surprisingly strong Q1
Autodesk, the Big Daddy of AEC, reports Q1 results tomorrow so it's time to play catchup on the earnings of its public competitors. Bentley, the #2 player in AEC, is not saying anything publicly right now because it filed (again) for an initial public offering in...
CAE is cautiously optimistic: News from Altair, ANSYS, and ESI
The New York Times recently had an article about the language companies are using on their earnings calls, and how it's different now than in prior periods. Many calls started and ended with CEOs saying that the welfare of colleagues and customers is of prime...
Quickie: Rockwell completes Kalypso acquisition
Rockwell Automation just completed the acquisition of Kalypso that it announced back in February. Kalypso is a PLM consultancy that often works with PTC products; Rockwell bought $1 billion of PTC's shares and is a deeply embedded PTC partner for the smart factory. As...
Hexagon: “extraordinary times” led to Q1 down 7%, cost-cutting plan
Hexagon reported FQ1 2020 results last week that really reflect the slowdown CEO Ola Rollén noted on his February call about the 2019 results and reinforced with the announcement that the company would defer a decision on paying a dividend until more of 2020 was in...
PTC’s subs lead to a good FQ2 & perhaps a decent 2020
PTC's fiscal second-quarter couldn't have been more different from Dassault Systemes'. PTC's total revenue of $360 million was up 24%, beating expectations by a whopping $19 million. How could PTC have seen such a different selling environment? We'll explore that...
Dassault Systèmes’ Q1 as pre-announced; 2020 will be tough
DS announced results last week that were pretty much in line with what they had said earlier -- but the devil is in the details. If you want ALL of the details, go here. I'll summarize what I think it important and then riff on what it might mean for our PLMish...
What we learned: IBM, SAP and MuM report CQ1
As I noted yesterday we're starting to get into earnings season for software companies and, as expected, the news is mixed. If you want details, go here for details on IBM's quarter, here for SAP, and here for MuM's results -- following are just my main takeaways on...
Out of the COVID-19 mailbag — answering your top questions
I hope you're all safe and healthy -- and supporting the nurses, doctors, grocery store people, truck drivers, restaurant workers and all the others who are making it possible for those of us who can, to shelter in place. You've been emailing some great questions over...
