Autodesk SketchBook Mobile nearing 1 millionth download
Autodesk’s Manufacturing business unit held an analyst event last week in Portland, OR. Lots of interesting stuff under non-disclosure that I can’t write about until we get the all-clear. Not under NDA is the fact that right about now the 1 millionth buyer will...
Is SAP debuting new licensing schemes?
Sort of. Over the last few months, SAP and its customers have made the news by signaling changes in the way the software giant licenses its product and prices maintenance. The most recent news has SAP experimenting with flat-rate pricing and extended payment plans for...
ANSYS Q3: Short-term caution, long-term optimism?
By now, you’ve undoubtedly seen ANSYS’ Q3 results. To quickly recap, revenue was $128.2 million, up 5% from a year ago and at the high end of guidance -- but disappointing nonetheless as organic revenue (without Ansoft) fell 5.5% and total software license revenue...
WSJ: Jittery Companies Stash Cash
The Wall Street Journal had a great article yesterday on the apparent hoarding of cash by America’s public companies. According to the piece, “in the second quarter, the 500 largest nonfinancial U.S. firms, by total assets, held about $994 billion in cash and short...
Quick hits: news roundup
We’ve been so focused on the big news of last week (in case you missed it, Dassault Systèmes is buying the DS-focused IBM PLM division of IBM and PTC and DS announced earnings) that a lot of other noteworthy items slipped under the radar. A quick recap: How long...
DS: Holding steady
Good things come in twos (so far): Dassault Systèmes reported that Q3 performance was as expected, with total revenue of 291.7 million euros and software revenue of 255.6 million euros, both down 8% from a year ago but essentially flat with Q2. Keep in mind that Q3 is...
PTC: Things are looking up!
The good news: things are looking up enough for PTC to forecast actual growth for next year - not couched in terms of “constant currency” or using non-GAAP measures. Actual growth! The bad news, of course, is that 2009 was a dismal year by many measures. PTC issued a...
The DS/IBM deal changes the PLM sector
Regardless of whether you like the deal DS struck to buy the IBM PLM business, it does change the dynamics within the PLM sector. From a competitive perspective, DS will now face the same issues of access that PTC and Autodesk face: can their sales reps get in to see...
Some questions resolved in DS/IBM deal
But some questions remain. First the answers from today’s analyst call. Keep in mind that DS couldn’t answer some of the most pointed questions because IBM PLM is a non-reporting piece of a public company and, as such, DS can’t disclose the unit’s financials. • This...
Largest deal in DS history: buying part of IBM
In the largest deal in its history, Dassault Systèmes announced that it is acquiring the IBM sales and support operations for DS's PLM application portfolio, including customer contracts and related assets, for approximately $600 million in cash. One stated goal of...
Earnings preview: good news ahead?
PTC, Dassault Systèmes (DS) and ANSYS report third quarter earnings over the next ten days, so it’s time for a preview. Each company has kept a tight lid on things, so only insiders know what will be reported but we can look to other company’s reports for...
Three tools to measure Twitter success
Many companies look at hits on a website, clickthroughs from advertising, numbers of “friends” and mentions in blogs (to name just a few) to measure the success of online activities. I’m not sure that these are meaningful, but how can you evaluate success without some...
Innovation = Market Cap?
Does the use of any particular tool lead to recognition by the stock markets? During the opening sessions of the Invention Machine User Group meeting yesterday, VP Marketing Jeff Boehm said that the combined market cap of companies attending the event grew 4.2% in the...
5 billion tweets — and counting
According to Gigatweet, the 5 billionth tweet was delivered sometime today (maybe yesterday - we’re at 5,005,611,937 as I type). That’s a lot of people saying a lot of things, 140 characters at a time.To put this in context, the one billionth tweet was delivered in...
Good news from AVEVA
AVEVA Group today gave preliminary information on its results for the six months ended September 30 -- and it’s surprisingly good. In a press release, AVEVA says that large new capital projects are hard to come by, but that customers’ existing projects and favorable...
Scary publishing news: BusinessWeek sold for <$5 million
I look away for a few days ... It was announced earlier this week that BusinessWeek was sold by McGraw-Hill to Bloomberg for under $5 million. BusinessWeek, founded in 1929, used to be the magazine of record of the business world (less opinionated than Forbes, more...
Small world: Gallello takes reins at MSC
Symphony Technology Group (STG) announced today that it has completed its acquisition of MSC Software for a grand total of $390 million and that Dominic Gallello will be taking over as CEO.According to the press release, STG "will build a stronger company,...
Shareholders vote today on MSC/Symphony deal
MSC.Software Corporation holds a meeting today at 9AM Pacific at which shareholders will have their say on the deal reached last month with Symphony Technology Group to buy the company for $8.40 per share in cash. The share closed yesterday at $8.41, so someone still...
Social media can lead to problems, threaten success
Interesting lessons to be learned as a vendor tiptoes the line between success and disaster: A vendor (nowhere near the engineering software/PLM world) sent out an email announcing the imminent release of a new product. With permission, this email was posted on a...
Maintenance: 7% or 22% — or something in between?
InformationWeek last week published a very interesting article on the options available to software vendors as they determine how to price maintenance. In case you missed it: SAP customers revolted earlier this year, refusing to support a maintenance price increase...
