Q&A Tuesday: Treehouses, WiFi, CAE & PLM – oh my
People find the Schnitger Corp. website in all sorts of ways, looking for a lot of different information. [Did you know we now have over 1,000 blog posts with maybe a million words -- yikes.] Here are a couple of search terms that led people to this website and I need...
Is your PLM a uni-tasker? Hope not …
When you buy something, what are your criteria? I look at whether it does what I need it to do, if it’s a good value for the money, and if it leaves me room to grow or adapt as my needs evolve. Like Alton Brown of Good Eats fame (http://altonbrown.com/ - worth a look,...
Very quick: Yokogawa outbids AspenTech for KBC
You don't see this every day: AspenTech says that Yokogawa has outbid it to win KBC, which it just last month said would acquire. AspenTech says it "does not intend to revise its offer of 185 pence for each share of KBC Advanced Technologies plc (KBC) which was...
SolidWorks World 2016: makers, cloud and subs
Kishore Boyalakuntla, SolidWorks Brand User Experience Leader, joked that SolidWorks World is a bit like Disney for engineers — and, you know, it is! This year’s event had a slightly different vibe: it was less serious, more maker and decidedly not DS-centric. Yes,...
Quickies: MuM & GRAITEC earnings surprising
A lot of PLMish companies release earnings news and (as you no doubt know) I fall behind in writing longer posts about each. So, a compromise where I do quick summaries of a few companies while working on longer-form versions for others. This week, Mensch und Maschine...
3D Systems prelim results – surprise: ahead of expectations!
3D Systems has been battered lately, as the consumer market for 3D printing hasn't developed the way the company envisioned. A management shakeup, exiting the Cube businesses -- it's been a tough six months. Then, this morning, the news that Q4 revenue will be around ...
DS’ Q4 blows past expectations; CEO doesn’t see AVEVA & CD-adapco as credible acquisitions
When Dassault Systèmes (DS) reports results, there’s a blizzard of information to wade through, all carefully orchestrated to lead the reader to the desired conclusion: that DS is a healthy, growing business with activities on many fronts contributing to long-term...
ESI buys Mineset big data analytics from SGI
ESI today announced that it is acquiring Mineset Inc., a big data visual analytics and machine-learning specialist, from SGI. [Recall that ESI acquired OpenCFD Ltd, owner of the OpenFOAM Trademark, from SGI in 2012. -- Ed.] Mineset bills itself as "beautiful, simple,...
Trimble acquires Sefaira’s cloud analytics for building design
Trimble continues to build out its design capabilities, announcing today that it is acquiring Sefaira Ltd., which develops cloud-based analytical tools for the architectural market. Sefaira's Architecture, Strategy and Systems modules enable designers using Autodesk's...
No surprise: Autodesk announces restructuring
You probably saw this coming: a company used to operating on a perpetual license model isn't, financially, the same as one that relies on subscriptions. Different cash flows, and cash flows are what pay people, rent and utilities. So, today, Autodesk announced a...
Earnings quickie: Nemetschek beats even revised targets
I'm at SolidWorks World, so this has to be quick: Nemetschek today announced preliminary results for Q4 and 2015 that showed its momentum continued into the fourth quarter. Total revenue for the year was €285 million, exceeding both original and revised (upwards)...
PTC takes a look, clarifies IoT+CAD+PLM+VR+SLM vision
PTC last week rolled out its vision for the augmented reality-enabled enterprise: access to all sorts of data related to an object, served out on tablets, watches, phones and other devices, with the specifics of the data tailored to the needs of the user. This vision...
Q&A Tuesday: It’s not all about CD-adapco
... though most of your questions over the last two days have been focused on CD-adapco and Siemens PLM. There is other news out there worth your consideration. First, keeping to the CAE theme: SIMSOLID (about which I'll write more thoughtfully soon) announced today...
Siemens CEO says CD-adapco is a perfect fit
I put up a quick blog post yesterday about the planned acquisition of CD-adapco by Siemens and added more info to it as the day went along — please check back there for initial thoughts — but wanted to do a separate update today. Siemens held its December-quarter...
Siemens snaps up CD-adapco for a cool $1 billion
The rumors are finally confirmed: Siemens PLM is acquiring CD-adapco for $970 million. For those keeping track, that's about a 5x revenue multiple. ADDED after this blog was first published at around 2PM ET on 25 January 2015 because people were asking for a bit more...
PTC’s Q1 shows people like subs — more than PTC thought
A one-word recap of PTC's fiscal first quarter earnings release: subscriptions. People really like them! That's messing with the rest of the finances (that whole ratable-over-the-life versus big-payment-upfront thing) and PTC's comments still focus almost...
PLM fosters business agility, if you do it right
No business is static. Everything changes, all the time. The successful business adapts, figures out what to change in its offerings, in the technology it uses and in the way its people work. This means identifying the change and brainstorming ways to succeed in spite...
Where are we going? A simulation view
The good news: we’re no longer evangelizing about the benefits of simulation. Most people and companies understand that CAE can help create better products, more quickly. The bad news: many still don’t get the fact that simulating one facet of a product isn’t...
AspenTech snaps up KBC for refinery ops
Now this is interesting. AspenTech, which makes software used for the design and costing of chemical processes (think the molecular changes required to turn crude into jet fuel) and for optimizing the overall oil and gas supply chain (think "how much crude do I have,...
Plant design in a world of $30 oil
I get asked this a lot: what are oil producers (and their contractors) doing when the price of oil is so low? Why keep producing? Why do they need engineering services — and CAD, PLM, visualization, and other engineering-related technologies? The questions usually...
