Appreciating the good things
Have you felt things slowing down this week? Yes, there's news being made and lots we probably should be doing, but the email stream is slowing and the phone is ringing a bit less. The US celebrates Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November; the midweek holiday...
Quickies: Deal, partnership and more
So much going on! Today is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy, the internet is abuzz with a very polite puppy and our PLMish world is cranking through the news cycles. It's raining and cold here in Boston, so a good time to...
Quickies: AEC earnings show upswing in construction
Time to catch up! Nearly 15 companies reported September quarter earnings while I was away, so to get a the general sense of what they're reporting I'm going to be summarizing them all over the next few weeks. Today, we're looking at AEC, the world of Architecture,...
AVEVA’s H1 shows strength in design
AVEVA yesterday announced results for the six months ended September 30 that were both in keeping with the upbeat tone of the interim statement released at the end of the June quarter and the more cautious economic sentiments we've heard elsewhere, especially among...
PTC’s 2013 — what a difference a Q makes!
Sometimes you can hear glee over the phone wire, can't you? At roughly the same time that Dassault Systèmes announced that it missed its September quarter objectives, PTC's CEO Jim Heppelmann was telling Wall Street that total revenue for the quarter was up 6% to $345...
CAE Symposium highlights NX & LMS
The past two weeks could not have been more different. Last week, Cincinnati's working-class vibe; this week, Las Vegas' glitz. The nuts and bolts of product design with a smattering of vision versus a lot of vision with the barest mention of product design. We'll get...
Totally OT: Las Vegas, love it or ??
As you know, I travel a lot for work and most often wind up in Las Vegas since that's where many companies seem to hold user conferences and sales kickoffs. I can certainly see the attraction for the hosting company: lots of hotel rooms, convention space of apparently...
AVEVA’s World Summit focused on E3D & vis
At last year's World Summit, AVEVA unveiled its vision for the future of plant design, Everything 3D, aka E3D. This year's event didn't have that big a moment, but had a series of smaller moments all centered around the visual impact of information. Whether for...
Autodesk goes CAM!
Autodesk announced this week that it is offering £20.75 per share (for a total of about £172.5 million) to acquire Delcam, the publicly traded UK-based vendor of CAM-specific CAD, manufacturing and inspection solutions. Delcam reported 2012 revenue of £47.1 million,...
Hexagon’s Q3, Shell & rentals
While I was wandering in East and North Yorkshire, 3D Systems, Accelrys, FARO, Hexagon, Nemetschek and other companies announced results for the September quarter. Time for recaps so, first up, in keeping with the Plant/Infrastructure theme we have going, let's focus...
Autodesk acquires class-A sufacing from VSR
Autodesk announced on Monday that it has acquired "certain technology assets" from Virtual Shape Research GmbH (VSR), a developer of class-A surface modeling and conceptual design software. In an always-awkward turn of phrase, the company said that "[a]s part of the...
Bentley Inspired by Infrastructure
Bentley Systems' Be Inspired awards felt different this year. It's always a showcase of tough, complex infrastructure problems like righting the Costa Concordia, bringing clean water to underserved populations, or building a massive rail structure under a vibrant city...
Engineers RULE: Righting the Costa Concordia
Were you glued to the TV/Interwebs the day the Costa Concordia was righted? I definitely was. The cruise ship ran aground and capsized off the Italian island of Giglio nearly two years ago, where it has lain as engineers, regulators and environmental activists tried...
Quickies: Bentley Day 1, some catch-up and more sheep!
A lot happened while I was walking around Yorkshire and we need to cover Bentley's Year in Infrastructure Day 1, too, so let's get right to it: ESI Group announced that it has acquired 75% of the equity of CyDesign Labs, a Silicon Valley company that many of you may...
Totally OT: Yorkshire, sheep & weather
I'm in the UK for Bentley Systems' annual media/analyst event but need to tell you about my recent vacation: walking what might be the UK's least-known National Trail, the Yorkshire Wolds Way. The Wolds Way runs 80 miles, from Hessle (near Hull on the Humber River) at...
Autodesk’s Dynamo changes conceptual design
Have you ever sat though a 4+ hour meeting? You get kinda dozey, right? That happened to me a few weeks ago as I was listening to Autodesk's investor day presentations. It was long, there were interesting bits, but .... Then SVP Amar Hanspal showed a little video of...
The ups & downs of license model choice
We learned earlier this week what can happen when customers are offered a choice and pick something unexpected: Dassault Systèmes announced that it failed to meet its third quarter 2013 revenue goals, in part, because more customers opted for rentals/subscription than...
PI Congress wrap-up: lots of PLM
Last week, I attended the Product Innovation Congress (PI Congress, for short), put on by MarketKey in a rather ...unusual... hotel outside Chicago. This was the 2013 edition of last year's PLM Innovation Americas conference, which focused a lot on PLM implementations...
Quickies: DS preannounces Q3 miss, Hexagon acquires
It's a holiday for some here in the US, but the PLMish world hardly slows down! First up, Dassault Systèmes announced that it had missed its Q3 targets, with preliminary data showing non-IFRS revenue of €496 million, €24 million short of the company's forecast of €520...
Hexagon’s snaps up AHAB for surveying
It's only Tuesday and Hexagon has already announced two acquisition this week! Yesterday, it was mining and Devex; today it's GIS and Airborne Hydrography AB (AHAB), which develops and markets airborne laser survey systems for hydrographic (seabed) and topographic...
