A quick peek into some research on … the impact of the economic downturn and the fledgeling recovery on the market for CAD, CAE, PLM, and other software for engineers and product developers. In 2009, I conducted a survey jointly with Cyon Research, and Design Insight. We presented the results at the annual “Congress for the Future of Engineering Software, COFES, which generated some lively discussion. We are repeating the survey this year, and looking forward to understanding the views of the market this year as compared to last.
The Research Findings – 2010 (please take the survey)
Before getting into the results for 2009, I ask you please contribute by taking 5-10 minutes of your time to answer about a dozen short questions on this year’s survey: COFES 2010 Survey. Please participate, and I will make sure we share our findings and insights back with you.
The Research Findings – 2009
As I stated last year, the research was not intended to be an economic forecast, but instead an indication of the sentiment of the industry. The study was designed to guage respondents’ opinions about the market, and should be take as such.
I shared some results last year in Research Rap: Impact of Economy on Smaller PLM Vendors. I found it interesting that most smaller vendors felt that they would struggle but survive. As the calendar has turned, we will close the loop on this prediction and see how it turned out. I would dare say that the shakeout was not as bad as some expected it to be. But the big question was when did the people in the industry expect to see a return of the engineering software market to its prior strength.
The question was: “What is your best estimate of when the engineering software market will recover (to approximately 2005-2007 levels)?” Here was the view from last year:
What we noticed, though, was that the executives at the software vendors were more optimistic about the timing of the recovery than the executives at their customers:
Who was right? Has their opinion changed? Please take the survey so we have a good comparison of this year’s market sentiment to last: COFES 2010 Survey. I promise to “mythbust” my own predictions as well as the markets.
So that was a quick peek into some recent research on the engineering software market recovery, I hope you found it interesting. Does the research reflect your experiences? Do you see it differently? Let us know what it looks like from your perspective. Take the survey, and share your thoughts with all of us and the participants at COFES.
Please feel free to review more free research and white papers about PLM and other enterprise software for manufacturers from Tech-Clarity.