A blog by Oleg Shilovitsky
Information & Comments about Engineering and Manufacturing Software

PLM Appliance Game Changer?

PLM Appliance Game Changer?
Oleg
Oleg
23 December, 2010 | 2 min for reading

People making software sometimes get excited about appliance. There is something magical in the way appliance can solve a problem. Especially for people struggling with software installation, implementation, configuration, etc. I read Bloomberg’s “SAP’s Hana Speeds the Database Race”. SAP anounced their revolutionary approach just 3 weeks ago: “SAP Announces First of a New Generation of Business Applications Harnessing In-Memory Computing, Enables Companies to Re-Think Layers and Complexity of the Traditional IT Stack”.  SAP news made me think about what is the potential of appliance delivery in PLM business.

Who is making Appliances?

There are few companies I’d mention in the context of appliance makers. First and obvious is Google Search Appliance. Google delivers appliance to index documents inside of companies. Another interesting appliance maker is Netezza (just acquired by IBM few months ago). Another foot steps into the appliance market was done by Oracle by presenting Oracle Exadata server. EMC Greenplum is probably another business example worth looking on.

PLM and Appliance

I never heard about CAD and PLM companies stepping into Appliance business. However, with growing of application complexity some PLM development wizards may think about Appliance as a viable option. Until now, I’ve heard only about pre-configured option related to the partnership between PLM companies and HW vendors such as Dell or HP. This is a step into the possible Appliance direction.

Cloud vs. Appliance?

I hope, you have not been surprised by this comparison. The cloud option is one that can be successfully positioned against “appliance magic”. The computational power of cloud is growing. The ability to run elastic infrastructure was improved over the past few years. PLM companies are flirting with cloud deliveries, for the moment. However, no mainstream solution was delivered till now for high performance global cloud deployment.

What is my conclusion? My view – Nope. Appliance will not become a game changer for PLM business. I think, appliance is a continuation of database-centric approach in PLM. This approach needs to go away and be replaced by “network approach”. Cloud fits network in a much better way. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Recent Posts

Also on BeyondPLM

4 6
22 January, 2015

One of the most complicated parts of any PLM implementation is data modeling. Depends on PLM vendor, product and technology,...

25 September, 2015

I had a chance to attend DFM Summit in Brooklyn, NY yesterday afternoon. More information and program can be found here....

31 October, 2011

Earlier, this year, I post a blog called – Integrated PDM and PLM: Wrong Question? In the beginning, this blog...

28 May, 2015

Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins shared her (almost) traditional presentation about internet trends yesterday. The presentation is available here –...

20 May, 2013

Searching for information is a tricky thing. Search may sounds as a simple operation, but in fact,  it is translated...

2 April, 2025

Last week, I attended the CIMdata event. Check my article and thoughts where I covered the event. As usual, for...

20 September, 2010

One of my blog readers asked about who is developing Mobile PLM? The question of mobile is not new. Everybody...

4 January, 2009

On behalf of Ronni… Inspired by recent family events and PLM Think Tank recent posts :).  Another case for Microblogs...

8 February, 2021

My recent blog about how to integrate BOMs and also the opportunity to have a Single BOM? brought many questions...

Blogroll

To the top