ESI ends 2013 on an up, with revenue +7% in Q4
ESI Group yesterday announced results for the quarter and year ended January 31, 2014. Total revenue for the quarter was €45.5 million, up 7% as reported and up 13% in constant currencies (cc). For the year, total revenue was €109 million, flat year/year as reported...
Happy Pi Day!
Today is March 14, which in the US is written as 3/14 and has morphed from a day to celebrate the birth of Albert Einstein and the Greek letter π into a day to eat ... pie. The US Department of Education has some nifty ways to celebrate, including writing a Pi-ku. A...
Hexagon expands into vehicle safety
Last month, drone multicopters. This week, vehicle safety. Hexagon continues to push the envelope on our definition of precision measurement technology, taking it in unexpected directions -- like collision avoidance in mines. SAFEmine started six years ago,...
Rethinking simulation — should you?
Not long ago, I was at a user conference and started chatting with the person sitting next to me. Interesting guy, works for a company that makes plastic doohickeys. We're talking about his design challenges, and how he wants to use CAD/CAM technology to make better...
Morning coffee: deals, grants and the budget
Happy Monday! Did you remember to change your clock on Sunday? If you're in the US, you lost an hour of sleep this weekend. If you're not, please understand that your US colleagues are sleep-deprived and feeling like we're all an hour behind. We'll get over it. Coffee...
ANSYS hits Q4 targets, but plans to do better
ANSYS keeps rolling along, relying on a mix of products and end-industries to insulate it somewhat from broader macroeconomic winds. The company reported Q4 revenue of $236 million, up 7% from a year ago, with software revenue up 4% to $148 million and maintenance and...
Autodesk’s Q4: license transition, AEC strength
Let's do a little math, shall we? If we buy software at Staples for $5,000, Staples gets $5,000 and the creator of the software gets maybe $3,000 of that. Assuming we don't buy any more, in 5 years, the vendor will have gotten just $3,000 from us. If we buy that same...
Morning coffee: earnings & manufacturing at the White House
Happy Monday! We hope you had an excellent weekend and that your favorite movie won big at the Oscars. Pour a cup and let’s do a quick recap of last week as we warm up to a new one. It’s the Economy … A strong "meh" isn't really the news we want, but that's what we're...
US shipbuilding: a study in contrasts
Did you know that US shipyards built 1260 ships in 2012? And that 99% of the units were commercial while 60% of the revenue seen by the builders was from the military? Me neither -- I had suspected but had no idea it was this imbalanced. I also didn't know that the US...
Quickie: 3D Systems’ Q4 meets lowered expectations
Earnings news is coming fast and furious this week. This morning, 3D Systems announced that Q4 revenue was up 52% to $155 million, on 34% overall organic growth. But, as preannounced a couple of weeks ago, the product mix was not as anticipated, leading to lower than...
Quickies: New record for Cimatron, ANSYS at midpoint in Q4
Last night Autodesk, today ANSYS and Cimatron -- oh my. There's lots more to say about Autodesk's results but, as a lead-in to Cimatron, Autodesk CEO Carl Bass said the following about its recent acquisition of Delcam: "All of a sudden the manufacturing part of...
Autodesk: suites up, revenue down in license model transition
Autodesk just reported that fiscal Q4 revenue was $587 million, down 3% as reported, leading to a 2% decline in revenue for the year, to $2,312 million. Part of that decline is due to buyers choosing subscriptions, and Autodesk offering "flexible license arrangements...
Accelrys announces slight uptick in revenue
Accelrys, the chemistry and materials modeling and simulation company that's currently a Dassault Systèmes acquisition target, just announced that revenue for the quarter and year ended December 31, 2013 was up 5% to $47 million and up 4% to $169 million for the year,...
Too many CAD systems? Read on …
As you may know, I’ve been blogging over at the PTC Creo website, trying to address the issues CAD users and managers ask about most often. This week’s post explores what to do if you find yourself with too many CAD systems. A surprising number of CAD managers wind up...
Morning coffee: goodbye Sochi, hello new week
Welcome to a new week. If you were off last week, welcome back; we missed you. Grab a cup of coffee and an apple (or, let's be real, a pastry) and let’s do a quick recap. It’s the Economy … Last week was relatively quiet on the economic news front, though civil unrest...
Hexagon gets into drones
Hexagon just keeps getting more interesting. Started out as a fish cannery and parts maker, sold off those businesses and acquired sophisticated measuring devices and software, GIS and then Intergraph ... Lots of acquisitions in between, but today Hexagon announced...
Working with your reseller isn’t about the transaction
As you may know, I've been blogging over at the PTC Creo website every couple of weeks. This week's post is all about how to get the most out of your relationship with your resellers. Yes, they sell you stuff, but the good ones are so much more than order takers. Do...
Morning coffee: Valentines, sports, earnings and more
Happy Monday! If you're in the US, odds are you have the day off. Traditionally, you'd be out car shopping but you're probably still in your jammies, watching the Olympics. Great men's hockey game on Saturday, huh? Shame it had to be decided on a shootout, but we'll...
Altair appifies CFD
We take a break from the streak of earnings and acquisitions to focus on CAE -- specifically, CFD. Earlier this year, John Chawner of Pointwise highlighted a survey which found that "58% of engineers aren’t prepared for running CFD. Keeping in mind the difference...
ESI acquires CAMMECH as springboard in Asia
It's been an interesting week. This is the second unanticipated deal to float into my inbox: hot on the heels of Intergraph adding GT STRUDL to its stable is ESI's news that it has acquired CAMMECH (Cam Mechanical Solutions), based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam....
