Autodesk, Cloud and PLM for $19.95…

by Oleg on March 1, 2012 · 17 comments

BAM…BAM…BAM… Finally, it happened. Autodesk PLM 360 is here. It was a long run for Autodesk to converge from the story of “Anti-PLM rap” to “PLM for everyone“. Yesterday, I was watching a webcast session from Autodesk Manufacturing HQ in Lake Oswego, OR. Autodesk’s approach to PLM is to make it available to everyone from the cloud on any device. According to Autodesk, PLM revolution is finally here:

My historical record about PLM and Autodesk

PLM and Autodesk was a popular theme on my blog for the last 2 years. First time was writing about that was two years ago in January 2010. Navigate to my post PLM for individuals – integrated or die? My bet two years ago was that Autodesk will try to leverage internet technologies to delivery a different solution. I thought, Autodesk would be  trying to make PLM different. Another post – Autodesk, Data Management and Why PLM question. Read the following passage from my past back in 2010:

Autodesk is going on a very narrow bridge and trying to connect customer’s demands to have a rich scope of data management functions and integration with design tools like Autodesk Inventor. At the same time, Autodesk is trying to avoid getting into positioning data management as a “PLM strategy”.

Another post about Autodesk and PLM (one year ago) – Autodesk: from PDM to MLP? This is what I wrote in my conclusion:

I think the game around enterprise data becomes more important than before. Data is a key asset in a manufacturing company and Autodesk customers can put their demands very high. These demands are moving Autodesk Vault and other data-management management products towards additional functionality. Process oriented workflow is one of the most remarkable I noticed in Autodesk Vault 2012. To increase functionality and keep the low level of complexity for Autodesk product will be the next challenge for Autodesk engineers and product managers.

Autodesk PLM and Salesforce.com

So, Autodesk is betting on the cloud and wants to repeat Salesforce.com success to deliver the variety of PLM apps for any purposes. To see what apps Autodesk offers for the moment, navigate your browser to the following link.

Application is probably a key thing to make it successful. Randal Newton of GraphicSpeak in his article Autodesk launches cloud-based PLM yesterday; only time will show if Autodesk will be able to deploy PLM applications to a diverse set of companies. Here is my favorite passage:

We expect Autodesk to brag in a few weeks about how many companies have downloaded Autodesk 360. The promise of scalable, affordable PLM is just too alluring to ignore. It won’t be the simplicity or the cloud-based mechanics of Autodesk PLM 360 that make it a hit, however, but the ability of the apps. Only time will tell if Autodesk has done its homework well, as companies of all sizes give it a pilot deployment.

Is there PLM for $19.95?

One of the things mentioned by Autodesk was about to make PLM affordable for everyone. During the webcast yesterday, Autodesk announced that first 3 users are free. However, looking on the pricing model, it is not obvious. The starting price is $25 per user per month.  It also looks expensive compared to Salesforce.com pricing model. Again, it is hard to compare functionality, but there is no PLM for $19.95 available yet…

My experience with Autodesk PLM

Autodesk provided me an account to use Autodesk PLM almost after autodeskpm360 website became open. It is still too early to say something specific about what is my opinion. I had some initial trouble to log in, but it was resolved almost instantly. Rob Cohee sent me correct credentials to login. You can see my home screen of Autodesk PLM 360:

What is my conclusion? Autodesk made a significant turnaround from rejecting PLM to claiming Autodesk PLM revolution to come to every manufacturing company. If I think Darwinian, it can be a confirmation of the Autodesk ability to adopt to the reality of today’s world. One of the conclusions I’ve made last week during PLM Innovation conference in Munich – PLM is strategic now. Autodesk is claiming PLM revolution and emphasizing “technology” as one of the enabling factors. It means technologies behind Autodesk PLM 360 is what made Autodesk PLM possible. I’m looking forward to seeing technological whitepaper about Autodesk PLM 360 with some details going beyond marketing buzzwords. Time will show what Autodesk is serving us in PLM cloud box.

Best, Oleg

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Tagged as: Autodesk, Autodesk PLM 360, Cloud, PLM, Salesforce.com

  • Peter Van Keulen

    Hi Oleg,

    Do you know the business model behind this.
    Is it direct sales or are there any partners involved based on the business model of Autodesk?

  • http://twitter.com/broepke Brian Roepke

    Oleg – Expensive compared to Salesforce? When they state there most common model is $125/user/month?!?  Autodesk PLM 360's price point is so low!  Keeping in mind this isn't a limited model that you hit a ceiling on later – you can use and make as many apps as you need.  

  • Stephen Bodnar

    Not to mention, CRM would be just an “app” in our world, and *all* of our apps are included for the $75/u/m.  So, I agree.  I'm not sure how one might come to that conclusion.

  • Stephen Bodnar

    Oleg – please read the text at the top of the pricing slide you posted.  Notice that it states that the first three users are free.  We'll look into making that more obvious.

  • Chris Williams

    I agree, I'm not sure how $25 or even $75 is more expensive than Salesforce… 

  • beyondplm

    Steve, Thanks for commenting! This is exactly what I'm saying. The pricing model shows 25$ and 75$ option. There is no free option. However, you are right, in small letters it written “3 users free”. Now, I'm a customer that wants to buy it and I have 2 engineers. How the process of purchasing will happen? (since I never did it, I don't know). Should I buy 75$ license and assume Autodesk won't charge me until I asume 3 and less? Best, Oleg

  • beyondplm

    @Brian, @Steve, @Chris, Thanks for your arguments! I said ”looks” like expensive. It is emotional. It is like you're getting to the shop, and everything starts from $5 vs. everything starts from $25. I'm talking about emotions and not about what is the real TCO and cost of the solution. Best, Oleg

  • beyondplm

    Steve, thanks for this clarification! The idea of “all” applications is valid. However, it contradicts to my philosophy of granular apps. I want to buy ONLY what I need and not a bundle. If you sell a bundle, you lose the whole point of apps. Just my opinion… Best, Oleg

  • beyondplm

    Peter, I don't know what is the business model. I expect Autodesk to allow companies to sell it directly. At the same time, I'm sure they will provide “partner” option to sell. However, it is all “my assumptions”, and I don't have any specific information about how Autodesk will sell. I think we will know soon… Thanks for raising this question! Best, Oleg

  • beyondplm

    Brian, $75 / month will take a user to ~$3500 TCO over 3 years per user, including maintenance. If I think about ALL applications, I would agree- this is probably cheap. However, my guess, customers will be interested to start from ONE specific solution (maybe I'm wrong, and you have much more information now). Nevertheless, if I'm just interested in how to manage ECOs, the price will be quite compatible to on packages from DS SolidWorks or similar. Just my opinion, Best, Oleg

  • http://twitter.com/broepke Brian Roepke

    I think one of the things your missing in your “app” analogy is with PLM 360 customers can freely build their OWN apps in the system, no charge…. build whatever you want.  This is really KEY.  When you can build your own you don't have to wait for someone to build it for you.  The solution can be ready in minutes / hours.  

    Honestly this is probably thing that people have been reacting to the most. I heard a story yesterday about how one of our AEs was in a first time meeting with a customer… They showed a very specific process to their business (utilities space)… The AE BUILT the application live in front of them.  I guess the group in the room applauded when he left! Never seen anything that fast and flexible.

  • beyondplm

    Brian, Actually, I'd love to learn how to build App in 10 min. Can you point me to online guide? So I will be able to build my first app during my flight back to Boston. Promise you to tweet / post – “I built first PLM 360 on the flight :) ” -Oleg

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  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=671446555 Jack Brown

    I am still not convinced that putting your family jewels out in the cloud is a safe way to protect intellectual property. At least I have full control of access to data if I host my PLM system on-site. Also, we used to work with another cloud based PLM system and when we found that it could not grow with us and we had to move on to something better, it was not as easy as requesting a database dump and working on a migration mapping. The data for our company was intermingled with every other user and it took over 6 weeks to receive an extract so we could figure out how to migrate into an internally hosted system. I don't know if tools like these are in place with 360, but I would think twice about the ramifications if you did go forward with it and how you would get your data back.

  • beyondplm

    Jack, I think you've made few important, but distinct statements. First about “safety”. You can keep things closed to your chest, but will it make it safe? It is much easy to steal data in a company compared to cloud servers. The weak link is people. 

    Your second point about data migration is important. I expect cloud providers to think about how to migrate and integrate data. So, not sure such tools are in place for PLM 360, but the priority to have it should be high. Together with openness it is one of the most important elements that can help to develop more cloud systems. At the same time, problem of the migration does exist in regular RDBMS based projects. 
    Just my thoughts…
    Oleg 

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