Why do I say that? Well for one thing I believe that they’re the first engineering solutions company that have demonstrated a broad, pragmatic suite of design, engineering and lifecycle management solutions that take advantage of the (public) Cloud. Their momentum on Cloud solutions is significant and this sets them apart from many of their competitors who’re still sitting on the Cloud fence.
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Will ‘app’ culture drive a new generation of user-centric enterprise IT?
I like to discern between ‘user-friendly’ and ‘user-centric’. To me, user-centric is more about the manner in which I would like to consume IT and is focused on my personalised experience of software; user-friendly is an important part of this experience but its definition often suggests nothing more than a pleasant user interface. My phone and pad ‘apps’, for example, provide me with a personalised IT environment that’s focused on getting the job done – quickly. The interaction with them, their ‘elegant simplicity’ and high degree of automation, helps me focus on what’s important ‘here and now’ without needless involvement of adjacent tasks.
First comments on Siemens acquisition of LMS – a synergistic acquisition
Having taken a back seat on acquisitions (compared to some of their PLM competitors), Siemens PLM Software, or should I say the greater Siemens, have reversed this trend quite dramatically over the past year. Indeed they’ve made some pretty shrewd acquisitions of late, none more so than today’s announcement on the acquisition of LMS International, a specialist in (notably model based) simulation and test. LMS is based in Belgium and their customer list reads like a who’s who in automotive and aerospace in particular (,not belittling the many other large manufacturing and energy companies and their aligned verticals).
Recent meetings with IBM reflect forward thinking strategies
Recent meetings with IBM reflect a number of forward thinking strategies; from silicon to software, services and IT hardware. Of course no company is perfect and IBM, as reflected by their last quarter’s results, is not immune to the dynamics of markets and/or technology. Having said this, their initiatives around Smarter Planet, business analytics and Cloud are growing at (an impressive) double digit rates, as too their business in many of the world’s emerging economies, notably China, India and Russia.
On the topic of Cloud…“where to now the channel”?
Of course ‘channel’ means different things to different people. Grouping distributors, resellers, dealers, business partners etc. etc. into one term is somewhat unfair – but generalisation for the purposes of this post is practical.
Some observations on Dassault Systèmes Q2 2012
I thought to touch on a few topics mentioned in Dassault Systèmes Q2 announcements. Firstly, Dassault’s results were commendable and I’m sure that the press and my colleagues in the financial and industry analyst community will comment on these in more detail over the forthcoming days.
“Openness”. An interesting term isn’t it?
Over recent months I’ve spoken to many end users, software suppliers and channel partners on the topic of openness. The topic is (understandably) emotive and newsworthy so I thought I’d take this opportunity to jot down some opinions I’ve canvassed. For the purposes of this particular post, I’ll try to limit the context to openness relating to the product (design and) lifecycle management software market; relating both to users and the larger software suppliers as well as some of their third party partners. This of course is an open-ended conversation; with many contributors able to add value. Please don’t feel shy to comment.
IBM Innovate2012. The Rational Software Conference, June 2012
The $845* million dollar acquisition of Telelogic AB by IBM was more than just a technology acquisition. It reflected awareness in IBM Rational that the industrial (manufacturing) sectors were important, in fact very important.
The Cloud – The dilemma of long term strategy vs. a rapidly evolving ecosystem?
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.
Siemens PLM Software 2011 update
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.