The conversations about future CAD and PLM solutions is not a new thing these days. I decided to re-read some of my previous writing about cloud and find it interesting in today’s context: Where is PLM shortcut to the cloud? You can read one more blog post – Putting your design on the cloud.
Earlier today, I had a chance to see a short presentation by Tal Weiss of Autodesk. Tal made it during my visit Autodesk R&D office in Tel-Aviv. It was part of my COFES Israel program today. Tal and his wiz team was part of acquisition Autodesk made to find a new and promissing technology in the cloudy space.
The presentation made me think about what I called in this post – Pragmatic Cloud. At the time industry is waiting for big game-changing technologies and product to come, I found that CAD and PLM vendors are started to introduce some solutions, slowly and quietly. I wanted to mention few of them.
Autodesk WS
Autodesk is doing some impressive job by introducing multiple apps that can be available from the cloud. Autodesk WS is one of them. According to Tal, the mission is simple – to make AutoCAD drawing available form the cloud for everybody. You can see the following video of Autodesk WS to get an impression.
Also, you can see a pic of Tal during his presentation in Autodesk R&D Israel office today.
Dassault 3DVIA Mobile
Another “almost cloud” solution. Dassault released 3DVIA Mobile App for iPad. It was available long time as iPhone app. Now it was shifted. This is a small step into the direction to make CATIA and SolidWorks informtion available separately from the desktop / laptop.
I’m still waiting to see some major cloud announcements from DS on the coming SolidWorks World 2011 in San-Antonio in six weeks.
Teamcenter for iPad
Another app that presented some mobility and disconnected data access. TeamCenter App for iPad. The application is actually made by TeamCenter partner- BCT Technology AG. You can see an impressive video below.
PTC on the Cloud Map
I didn’t find any cloud and/or mobile app available for PTC products. I found PTC behaves with a high level of ignorance in the “cloud” space. The latest thing, I’ve heard from PTC is that cloud is a delivery mechanism and it will be available to PTC customers when they will ask for that.
What is my conclusion? I think, “do less” and “do small” is a right strategy to adopt the cloud. The Autodesk seems to me mostly prepared for that. Cloud, Web, Mobile – all these things are very “tool oriented” today. So, to have some pragmatic tools, can be a good starting point. Just my opinion…
Best, Oleg
