Hmm … CFD results via Twitter
Every so often, someone comes along and does something I honestly would not have thought of: Symscape, a UK CAE vendor, announced recently that release 2.0.1 of its Caedium product includes “the world's first automated simulation telemetry system for posting images to...
2102: Reliable Plant says manufacturing returns to the US
Reliable Plant, an industry magazine for the manufacturing community, just came out with predictions for 2010. It’s a provocative piece and the predictions have interesting implications for the PLM community: 1) Production will return to the United States. The author...
Siemens AG has a tough quarter; what about PLM?
Siemens AG on December 3 announced dismal results for its fiscal fourth quarter, ended September 30, with total revenue down 9% to €19.714 billion. According to the company, “While the global economy showed increasing signs of stabilizing, capital investment was still...
AU Virtual: just like being there?
I’ve been to a number of Autodesk University events in Las Vegas, and can tell you that they are HUGE. Last year, around 10,000 people crammed into the convention center attached to the Palazzo and Venetian Hotels, attending the handful of keynotes, dozens of...
Keeping tabs on what people say …
Last weekend, a famous athlete was involved in a car accident that has many weird aspects. While all that ultimately matters is whether he or anyone else was seriously injured, the media has been buzzing about the lack of solid information about why he was out in the...
Twitter Top 10
As many of you know, I’ve been experimenting on Twitter: checking out what the PLM companies are doing (not much) and trying to figure out who is doing Twitter well, with a view to getting that out there so that everyone can start off strong. Here are my top 10 dos...
Update on IBM/Siemens PLM: it’s going well
My recent conversations with IBM about the change in its relationship with Dassault Systèmes naturally led to questions about how the closer integration with IBM and Siemens PLM is going. No details were provided but it does sound as though the partnership is at least...
IBM speaks: The DS/IBM PLM deal from another perspective
IBM still believes in PLM -- but now sees a different way to interact with what it sees as a large, lucrative and diverse market. Its partnership with Dassault Systèmes is still strong, but the change in their business relationship allows IBM to enter a customer or...
Q3: So, how did we do?
It’s always hard to create context around companies whose businesses, and business models, are so different but we can draw a couple of conclusions now that Autodesk, Dassault Systèmes and PTC have reported for the summer quarter: • Starting at the top: all three...
Autodesk rev flattening out, license up seq
Autodesk reported surprisingly solid results today, as FQ3 was the first quarter in 5 that showed sequential stabilizing in almost all categories of business, the exceptions being Asia Pac and Manufacturing. The outlook is improving too, as the company gave a modest...
Avatech sees sequential growth and returns to profit
Avatech reported today that there are signs that the US is in the early stages of a recovery that “could take some time,” according to President and CFO Lawrence Rychlak. The company still sees a tough sales environment in many areas, especially in Florida and...
AVEVA: Lower costs, resilience in oil & gas, cautious 2010
AVEVA Group gave further insight into its business performance in the last six months, reporting that revenue had declined 6.5% to £69.9 million as “challenging” market conditions affected its end-user markets. Though decline is markedly lower than that seen by other...
New alliance shakes up plant design CAD world
Intergraph and Autodesk announced today that they have reached an agreement that allows Autodesk to embed Intergraph ISOGEN into AutoCAD Plant 3D. ISOGEN, with about 50,000 users worldwide, is often considered the industry standard for the automatic production of...
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...

