Hot guitar riffs & cool announcements from PTC Live
PTC has spent the last, well, decade redefining itself. For a long time, it was the feature-based modeling powerhouse in a direct-modeling CAD world. Then it decided CAD was passé and devoted itself to building a PLM platform. Most recently, PTC entered the brave new...
Trimble adds more automation to the job site
Have you ever wondered how a construction site works? It's much more complicated -- and way higher-tech -- than most people realize. Trimble has been on a mission over the last 5 years or so to bring technology to the job site, since that's often the part of the...
ESI Q1: buoyed by BRIC and OpenCFD
Still working to catch up on what happened while you were at PTC Live? Me too! Honestly, it would be so much simpler if everything just went on hold while we're these things, right?! Not gonna happen, so catch-up it is. In addition to 3D Systems trying to acquire...
3D Systems moves into metal, snaps up Phenix
Not surprisingly, while a lot of us were at PTC's Live Global user conference in Anaheim this week, everyone else was doing ... whatever they were doing. And that, it turns out was quite a bit. 3D Systems Acquires (Most of) Phenix Systems 3D Systems makes what are...
Couldn’t get to Vienna? Recap of SIMULIA conference
Picture this: we're in an ancient city of castles, cathedrals and really good cake, meeting to talk about advancements in cutting-edge technology: simulation. It's a little like the picture to the right, of St. Stephen's cathedral reflected in a modern office...
Exa’s Q1 is back on track
Exa Corporation just announced results for its first quarter of fiscal 2014, which ended April 30, 2013. CEO Steve Remondi said that "revenue for the quarter was at the high end of our guidance, increasing 11%, or 14% on a constant currency basis, from a year ago....
AVEVA very happy with F13 results, has “a lot more in the tank”
CEOs lead interesting lives. In an interview with the CNBC Squawk Box team in the UK, AVEVA's CEO Richard Longdon was asked if the company's new Everything 3D (E3D) product was "CAD for smart people". Well, yes -- but the point of E3D is to make advanced design...
Earnings update, AEC edition — a mixed bag
This earnings season has been incredibly busy and I have fallen far, far behind in summarizing the highlights. To try to catch up a bit, I’ll be grouping these companies by general product category for you, since that’s so much more useful than chronologically by...
Big news: DS acquires Apriso for manufacturing management
First day back from a lot of travel --ask me about Vienna, the SIMULIA user conference and the General Clinton Canoe Regatta, pictured below, when you next see me-- and there's lot's of news -- oh, and a big acquisition to cover, too. Dassault Systèmes announced that...
Earnings update, 3D printer edition — looks good!
This earnings season has been incredibly busy and I have fallen far, far behind in summarizing the highlights. To try to catch up a bit, I'll be grouping these companies by general product category for you, since that's so much more useful than chronologically by...
Autodesk links PLM and ERP, buys Tinkercad
PLM 360 + NetSuite = Control for SMBs? Last week, Autodesk and NetSuite announced that they had entered into a strategic partnership to link Autodesk PLM 360 and NetSuite ERP, with the aim of offering PLM and ERP to small and medium-sized companies that might have...
Autodesk: Q1 was “tough”, no plan to end perpetual sales
Autodesk reported results last night that highlighted how tough the economy is, and perhaps will be for a bit longer than earlier-reporting companies had hoped. Until now, just about everyone pointed to tepid demand that got worse as we moved from January into...
PTC channel doing well, DS/SIMPOE update
It's going to be another busy week, with earnings from Hexagon, Cimatron and Stratasys today and then CENIT, ExOne and Autodesk later in the week. Before we start on those, however, there are a couple of bits of old business to handle, too. If "old" means last week...
News you can use, 10 May 2013
A quick digest to keep you up to speed on what's happening in our end-markets and the world at large. It's the Economy, Stupid The Harvard Business Review examines how Chinese government subsidies changed the global economic landscape, and ponders what will happen as...
SIMULIA shines the spotlight on topology optimization
Dassault Systèmes recently announced the acquisition of FE-DESIGN Group, makers of TOSCA for topology optimization. DS' SIMULIA brand had already released a TOSCA-based Abaqus product, Abaqus ATOM, and the relationship between SIMULIA and FE-DESIGN was good, so why...
Quickies: Adobe drops perpetual, DS buys SIMPOE
It's not even 8AM and there's already lots of news, so let's get right to it. Adobe announced late Monday that it will no longer sell its Creative Suite software and focus instead on its $50/month Creative Cloud and other subscription plans. Scott Morris, senior...
ANSYS beats some expectations, lowers others
ANSYS is in a no-win situation: reporting the best first-quarter revenue in its history, within its guidance for the first quarter but lower than some financial analysts had expected. Too, like many other tech companies, ANSYS lowered its revenue forecast for the rest...
Quickies: Uncertain economy drags down March quarter
It's a busy week for earnings reports from engineering software companies. While I work on longer-form reports, here are a few quotes from my notes. Note that these are not 100% representative of the company's March quarter reports -- in other words, the full results...
ESI falters, costs outpace revenue at year end
ESI yesterday provided more details on its results for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2013. As we posted after the preliminary announcement last month, total revenue was up 16% year/year to €109 million. However, the company's cautious outlook and...
DS reports OK Q1, adds FE-DESIGN & Archividéo
Dassault Systèmes' earnings announcements are usually a welter of numbers, currencies, products, markets and geographies. Today, DS threw two acquisitions into the mix, too. Grab a cup of coffee and let's see what it all means. DS reports that the March quarter was...
