I had the opportunity to talk with the team at Siemens PLM at their recent analyst conference in Boston. 
Every time I attend one of these events, I come back and ask myself “what can I share with people that will help them understand all that I learned in two days of presentations, demonstrations, interviews, and side conversations?” There is so much to share and so much detail it is hard to know where to start and there is not enough time to share it all. So I am going to share my key takeaways from the event in regards to the PLM Market, Cool Things Manufacturers are Doing with PLM, and My Take on how Siemens PLM is doing in furthering the PLM vision and roadmap. Fair enough? I hope so.
Note: Part 2 Cool Customer Tricks – Presenting Business Value from PLM at Siemens Conference is up now
The PLM Market
In short, the PLM market is alive and well. PLM, and Siemens PLM in particular, has made it through the economic downturn and is enjoying recovering spend. Interestingly, even with the current uneasiness in the market, PLM license revenues continue to grow. As Siemens reported at the conference, Siemens PLM has:
- Had 6 quarters of steady growth
- Enjoyed double-digit license growth
- Exceeded all of their profitability and cash flow targets
Other recent news from Siemens’ competitors also point towards a strong recovery for PLM software. Siemens PLM also gave some strong competitive updates including significant wins in automotive and claim to be having great success against the competition (although I am sure we will hear dissenting opinions from said competitors shortly).
Another important takeaway from the conference (and an indicator of PLM market health in my mind) is continued industry specialization. As I have been saying for years, including my soapbox on PLM is an Industry Affair, or Is It? going back to 2003 and revisited in 2010 with Mythbusting PLM is an Industry Affair – different industries need different things from PLM. But, and this is important, they also have common needs that transcend industry. I have seen PLM follow ERP in verticalizing offerings as it matures. At this point, Siemens PLM has re-aligned their organization to put greater industry-specific emphasis on their business. I think this is an important change, and was impressed at the well thought-out strategy that provides industry-focused solutions while still maintaining commonality across the industry offerings. This is an important balancing act so industry solutions can still leverage all of the core enhancements being added to the products. Well done.
At this point, I realize that this is going to be a long post even though I am summarizing. I think it’s time to take a break. Look for more on Cool Things Manufacturers are Doing with PLM and My Take on Siemens PLM’s Progress shortly.
Implications for Manufacturers
A healthy PLM market and Siemens PLM business is a good sign for manufacturers. This will ensure that Siemens will continue to invest in their PLM products to maintain growth. Interestingly, Siemens PLM President Chuck Grindstaff pointed out during the conference that Siemens does not believe in cutting R&D in a downturn anyway to ensure innovation, which is welcome news for customers I am sure.
So that’s what I hear from Siemens PLM, I hope you found it useful. What do you think?
I think the real problem with Siemens NX is that its user interface needs to be totally redone. Industry analysts don’t seem want to focus on this fact.
It takes far too many clicks to get things done in NX and the part or assembly is always being blocked with annoying pop up dialog boxes. No one who has ever used a modern CAD user interface like SolidWorks, Inventor, SpaceClaim or TopSolid has is going to be happy with NX’s user interface.
Siemens doesn’t seem to have clue one on what small to medium sized business really need or on how to get those SMB’s to move from say SolidWorks and Mastercam to a much more powerful fully integrated CADCAM system like NX.
Jon Banquer
San Diego, CA
http://cadcamtechnologyleaders.blogspot.com/
Jon,
Do you think Siemens puts NX up against SolidWorks, etc. or is that where they would suggest Solid Edge? I focus more on the enterprise-side than CAD, so I don’t really know how usability stacks up. The direction moving forward (I will talk more about that in one of my next posts) is to consolidate and simplify the user interface based on role – but I don’t have a perspective on how many clicks that would remove, etc. Thanks for sharing your views.
Jim
Jim,
Siemens suggests SolidWorks users bite the bullet and use a lousy user interface to get the increased power that NX has. It’s no surprise to me that almost all SolidWorks users reject this suggestion.
The problem with suggesting Solid Edge ST is that it doesn’t have the needed tools. Specifically, Solid Edge ST doesn’t have any built in CAM choices and doesn’t have the high end surfacing functionality that NX has.
Many years ago NX CAM should have been ported to the Solid Edge user interface. To this day nothing has been done about this problem. Siemens thinks that instead of offering fully integrated CAM in Solid Edge that they can get a way with offering two entirely separate solutions (Solid Edge ST and NX CAM Express) with two completely different user interfaces and that this is acceptable.
Consolidating the user interface in NX will not solve the problem of the NX CAM user interface being totally outdated compared to modern CADCAM packages, many of which are fully integrated into the SolidWorks user interface. It’s a poorly designed user interface in NX CAM that is causing far too many clicks to get things done and the part or
assembly to always be blocked with annoying pop up dialog boxes rather than a interface that is too complex. Simplifying NX’s user interface won’t help at all.
Jon Banquer
San Diego, CA
http://cadcamtechnologyleaders.blogspot.com/
Jim, great summary! I see “industry-vertical” solution as something that Siemens PLM is focusing. Not a big surprise (sorry for being a bit cynical). Except the fact that “everything is good with PLM”, can you point on any additional specific innovation and/or surprises coming from other places of Siemens PLM? Thanks, Oleg
Oleg,
Look for my second and third posts in the series for more specifics about Siemens and their customers, I felt the need to start with the basics for all of the people that don’t get the opportunity to get updated that way some of us do.
The industry move is more significant than you might think at first blush. They are giving real development budgets and influence to the verticals – it goes deeper than a few bolt-on solutions and pretty powerpoints for each industry.
Talk to you Friday,
Jim