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...