PLM vendors have some success helping displaced workers
Over the last year I’ve written a number of posts about vendors offering free or low-cost software and training to laid-off engineers and designers to help them better position themselves for the job market. How has that worked and how many people were actually...
VC funds trickling back into PLM
Comet Solutions back in January announced that it had closed on a $2 million series B round of investment led by Athenian Venture Partners together with Tri-State Growth Capital Fund and Kentucky Co-Investment Partners. The company will use the funds to expand its...
It costs too much to grow?
Autodesk UK recently announced the results of a survey of “more than 100 senior decision-makers, primarily working for mainstream manufacturing companies in the UK” that highlighted a problem I thought we had long overcome: the impression that design solutions are...
Mentor Graphics acquires Valor
Taking a page from the PLM playbook, Mentor Graphics announced on March 18 that it had acquired Valor Computerized Systems, extending its reach from design into manufacturability. The net price paid was about $50 million. Valor did not report revenue for the fourth...
Measuring: You really do get what you measure
This is the last in a series of articles exploring business metrics and their usefulness in the engineering software space. The last few articles in this series have covered metrics that I believe are important in running a business but, of course, in order to analyze...
ESI Group sales up 7% for 2009
ESI Group reported results yesterday for the year ended January 31 -- and investors like. A lot. ESI’s share price is up over 7% at mid-day trading in Paris. The details: • Total revenue for the year was €75.1 million, up 7.1% as reported or nearly 4% in constant...
The real impact of the 2009 debacle
I’m updating market models for 2010 and beyond and got to wondering: How long will it take the PLM vendor group to return to 2007, pre-recession, revenue levels? (Comparisons with 2008 are easier but won’t work, since many of the vendors started feeling the slowdown...
Webinars 103: Is anybody listening?
I’ve been blogging a lot about webinars and for good reason: they are an effective way to get the message out to an interested audience at a very user-friendly cost. But what happens if no one shows up? As so often happens, the conversation started about something...
MSC 2010: The company revamps
MSC Software has quietly been remaking itself: New owner, new leadership, new public face on its website and in webinars. Over the last few weeks, the wrappers have started to come off, as the company has quietly been releasing the 2010 versions of it major products...
Smaller vendors matter too
We get so caught up in the earnings releases of the major PLM vendors that we forget that other companies in the PLM universe also release information, much of it more closely tied to specific geographies or subsegments. Their results help round out the picture of the...