The word ‘Cloud’ to me denotes a vision on the evolution of user-centric computing. To some, including a senior party to HP’s strategy (who shall remain nameless for obvious reasons), the expression seems to be abused and over-hyped. Let’s face it; it’s a term that most of us can assimilate. Most of the people I speak with seem to understand its general vision and pretty much its implementation; but let’s not haggle over semantics shall we? What’s important is that it’s a valuable proposition to businesses and users alike.

I thought that I share with my readers a brief update on the highlights from last week’s Siemens PLM Software Analyst meeting. Unfortunately we’re (analysts) under non-disclosure on some facts and figures. In any case I’ll try to do my best to share what I can in terms of public highlights.

The recent Siemens Industry analyst event consisted of two days of intense information sharing - following the event, and given time to digest the information my (very concise) summary is as follows:

Excellent products with good development strategies supported by broad ranging competence and capability to deliver real working solutions in often complex business environments. Siemens PLM’s competence in verticals was often (in the past) under-represented but this is changing quickly. Always delighted, however, to see their enthusiasm for technology and focus on the customer. There’s a clear re-acknowledgement of the opportunity in small to mid size businesses – reinvigorated sales and marketing focus and fresh views should help define the way forward.

Now that the Dassault Systèmes assimilation of IBM PLM is complete we’ll have the opportunity to track the momentum of the new operation; announced last year, the realignment of sales strategy offers new opportunity, and of course, new challenges. As mentioned in a previous article, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. Talking (or writing ) of the changing nature of major PLM vendors, Siemens (PLM Software) recently announced their unified sales strategy, consolidating Product Lifecycle, Manufacturing Execution and Plant Lifecycle sales operations into a single entity, Siemens Industry Software. In the same release, Siemens announced an emerging sales relationship with HP. For those following major players in the PLM market this is indeed interesting news, especially in light of the major changes to Dassault Systèmes sales network.

Our observations from IBM's General Business worldwide influencers conference leads us to believe that IBM is well positioned to make much more of a mark in the sub 1000 employee company space; having said that HP, Sun, Dell, Cisco et al are not likely to let IBM take the initiative without a fight.