It was late in the day. The HVAC system in the small
auditorium wasn't keeping up. It was standing-room-only at
“Autodesk World Press Day 2007” in San Francisco. But when
somebody asked Autodesk CEO Carl Bass a question about PLM, he
lit up and acted as if the meeting had just started.
Why, asked Brad Holtz of Cyon Research, is Autodesk big on
Building Information Modeling (BIM) but not interested in
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) for manufacturing, when they
are two versions of the same concept. Bass disagreed with the
premise, noting that BIM is a way to inform the construction
design/build process by uniting the stakeholders around a single
building model. PLM, he said, does nothing of the sort.
“There are only three companies in the world that have a PLM
problem,” said Bass, obviously glad he got the question. “Their
names are Dassault Systèmes, PTC, and UGS. PLM is a marketing
slogan created to satisfy the financial community.”
I've heard variations on this line from others at Autodesk in
the past, but usually it was couched in terms of “democratizing
PLM” or “bringing PLM in through the back door” with
shrink-wrapped products. Today Bass made it clear where Autodesk
stands in comparison to its three largest competitors, all of
which have made PLM the center of their business.
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