Cloud of Data – can it work for PLM?

I’m continuing to explore a world of cloud for PLM. Today, I want to take and discuss a direction which looks for me very promising as advanced collaboration capabilities. Yes, we are very aware about a concern many companies have with regards to placement of their IP on cloud/ internet. However, on the other side, there is lots of product information that disclosed and becomes public anyway. When a company releases their products to the market, it stops becoming a secret. Also, companies are very often disclosing data for purposes of collaboration with external partners and customers.

So, why we cannot be use cloud platform for these purposes? Yes, I think, we can. I had chance to see videos of Factual– company focuses on the creation repository of open data. Pretty cool, it reminds our lovely Microsoft Excels, but on cloud. I see these are potential services for engineers, marketers and sales people in the company to collaborate and share data they need.

How To Create a Table With Factual on Howcast

I have to say, Factual is not the only company trying to do so.I can point on Freemix project by Zepheira, Freebase and some others.

What is my conclusion today? I think cloud storage of data will continue to growth. It‘s up to PLM vendors to explore potential opportunity and way to use it for customer benefits.

Best, Oleg