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

COFES, Microsoft and Engineering Software Business Models

COFES, Microsoft and Engineering Software Business Models
Oleg
Oleg
16 April, 2011 | 2 min for reading

COFES is a think tank for engineering software. This is a place where you can drop any idea and see if it resonates. One of the COFES sessions is so called Maieutic Parataxis session. Think about pitching your idea in front of 300 people. You can see a sequence of 7-10 pitches from people compressed in a row. This is what Maieutic Parataxis is about. Last year I shared the story about Simon Floyd of Microsoft talking about PLM Excels: COFES, Maieutic Parataxies and PLM Excels. This year Simon came with a new idea of future business models for engineering software. Some of Simon’s slides and observations were resonating with my previous thoughts about PLM software business models. About a year ago, I wrote about Faltered Licenses and Future PLM Business Models. I talked about Subscriptions, Advertising and Reverse models. Take a look on Simon’s slides and make your opinion.

What is my take on this? The engineering software is changing slowly. The dynamics are different from the consumer market where the idea of market pace was realized and succeed. I can see multiple reasons why it happens. The most important reason is what I call “a good enough” principle. Traditional manufacturers are very conservative. Software is just a tool for them to produce the result. Existing software can run these companies for years. At the same time, I can see signs of changes. There are two main reasons, in my view: cost and competition. In order to compete on the market, companies need to find more efficient software to get a job done. Engineering software market place can offer a diverse set of tools that can be used. However, the compatibility of these tools, data access and many other reasons can potentially lay down this idea. Leading companies in this space are thinking about market place and application granularity. I think next 5-7 years can show the potential of the realization of this model.  Just my thought…

Best, Oleg

Recent Posts

Also on BeyondPLM

4 6
15 January, 2025

I’m sure you’ve been thinking about hiring product lifecycle management consulting during the journey of PLM strategic planning and implementation....

24 May, 2018

CAD industry has its own rock-stars. And both Carl Bass (former CEO of Autodesk) and Jon Hirschtick  (CEO of Onshape...

16 October, 2012

PLM and marketing are not good friends. Marketing did a poor job for the last 10 years for PLM. For...

14 December, 2020

Last month I attended CIMdata virtual event 2020 PDT and PLM Roadmap. I’m still slowly skimming the slides and connecting...

17 June, 2010

A very interesting survey result published by Autodesk’s Scott Sheppard in his blog. In my view, numbers are clearly showing that...

20 May, 2019

Verdi Ogewell, the Editor-in-Chief of VerkstadsForum PLM Magazine and ENGINEERING.com’s European correspondent publish his next PLM failure bombshells – Telecom...

9 October, 2009

The new efficiency is where cost saving, productivity and innovation meet. I was reading “The New Efficiency” letter from Steve...

9 November, 2019

Few years ago, I published an article about Solidworks PDM systems. Check it out here. Back in 2016, I counted...

23 October, 2021

Earlier today, I’ve been catching up on some of the online events and reading. Today, I watched sessions from the...

Blogroll

To the top