One of the most interesting things I learned during Autodesk Forum in Moscow was related to local PLM vendors. I found it very educational and decided to share this informtion with my readers. Few months ago Autodesk announced about their plans to develop PLM solutions. You can read my previous blog about that – Autodesk PLM: Fast Second. At the same time, I can see Autodesk is actively partnering with existing companies developing PLM solutions. Earlier, this year Autodesk announced (link) about the partnership with Open Source PLM provider Aras. Appearance of four local PLM companies from Russia on Autodesk Forum in Moscow made me think about what means PLM for Autodesk.
Russia/CIS PLM market is very crowed. It represented by three mind share CAD/PLM vendors Dassault Systems, Siemens PLM and PTC. All of these companies are having their local offices. In addition to that, Russian CAD/PLM vendor Ascon is playing a significant role selling their CAD and PLM solutions. I wasn’t able to find updated information about market numbers. I found the old IDC reports (from 2007) – you can dig for some numbers about vendors’ position in Russia.
I had a chance to see presentations of four PLM vendors announcing and demonstrating their PLM products together with Autodesk.
SDI Solutions
This company is focusing on integration data from multiple data sources. They actually call themselves – MDM (Master Data Management). If you ware not aware MDM (typically implemented for large companies) is focusing on how you can bring data from multiple databases you have in your company to a single “Master” database. You can see it from few slides below. To learn more about the company, navigate to SDI Solutions (in Russian).
Top Systems
TFlex /Top Systems is a company, I’ve been in touch before and had some initial understanding of what they do. In addition to PLM product, Top System is selling 3D CAD product that potentially can compete with Autodesk Inventor. However, on Autodesk Forum Top Systems presented their concept of PLM+ (Russian link) – a system that can cover almost everything in manufacturing company. In a nutshell, PLM+ means “PLM” + everything else. You can take a look on few slides and made your opinion. Their idea of using PLM+ and saving on integration of all other systems is a dominant one. You can learn more by navigating to the following link (in Russian).
Souz PLM
Another system – Souz PLM coming from a company called Constructor.ru (in Russian) The system provides quite a standard set of functionality related to management of 3D CAD data. You can see it on a picture below. One of the things caught my attention was a part of this system focuses on collaborative reviews.
1C / Appius
Company 1C is a #1 ERP provider in Russia. As a local company, 1C is well-known and having a reputation of mainstream vendor with siginificnt Russian customer adoption level. Their PDM/PLM Module provides a standard list of functionality – CAD integration, Versions, BOM, Configuration, Vaulting, Manufacturing, Catalogs, Change Management, Workflow and ERP integration. At the same time, in my view, the marketing focus on this company is clearly about how to up-sell PDM/PLM to existing customers of 1C.
What is my conclusion? PLM companies become recognized members of Autodesk eco-system. The fact almost all local Russian PLM vendors attended Autodesk PLM forum in Moscow is a good confirmation that Autodesk is trying to learn more about PLM. On the global arena, Autodesk just introduced Aras PLM as their Gold Partner member, which is another recognition of Autodesk interest in PLM. In parallel, Autodesk pre-announced their own cloud PLM offering that expected to come later this year. How all these solutions, companies and strategies will live together is a good question to ask. What is your take? I’m going to share it with you, as soon as I learn more about it.
Best, Oleg
