PLM cloud comparison was a topic of my ongoing research and discussions since last year. Cloud adoption is growing. In 2015, we have seen all major PLM providers came out to support cloud strategy and cloud technology. But the devil is in details and not every cloud is the same. Very often users are confused by multiple technological and marketing terms – IaaS, PaaS, public cloud, private and hybrid cloud, etc.
Over the course of last year, I published several articles outlining the evolution of my research. Check out the following links – PLM is the best hosted, SaaS or On-premise…. let’s sort it out; How to compare PLM cloud services; PLM Vendors: cloud service comparison and my final article – The buyers’ guide for cloud PLM in 2015.
The competition between PLM vendors is heating up and it looks like cloud battle can be the event that will reshape the future of PLM market and vendor positions. The following picture introduced in my article – PLM from company servers to multi-tenant application. In my view, it presents a better perspective on how to compare PLM on-premise and cloud portfolios and highlight the evolution of PLM systems in the cloud era.
The following table is summarizing list of vendors and creates the next version of comparison. I’ve made a check about including or excluding some vendors from the list and found Tech-Clarity blog – Strategies of the Major PLM vendors 2016+ very useful. Note- I still use Autodesk PLM360 name to prevent confusion, but Autodesk rebranded its PLM product and it is called Autodesk Fusion Lifecycle now. There are several newcomers in the world of cloud PLM – all of them should be represented in SaaS application category, but I think to include them is not appropriate. After some additional thoughts I didn’t include Onshape – it clearly belongs to cloud CAD category I covered earlier, even so it has lot of potential to grow in the future.
In my view, the picture represents clearly old vs new vendors landscape as well as highlight few vendors trying to create a balanced act of supporting multiple PLM strategies. I put “?” marks in places where I didn’t find public confirmation of the product offering, by I guess there are works in this direction (please comment if you think some of the information in the chart is incorrect – I’d be happy to update it).
What is my conclusion? Users are looking for a simple perspective on the evolution of PLM from heavy on premise applications to agile, lean and global cloud services. The next 5-10 years will present a significant transformation of enterprise software – once-in-a-generation shift from corporate IT to multi-tenant cloud apps and elastic computing. Just my thoughts…
Best, Oleg
Want to learn more about PLM? Check out my new PLM Book website.
Disclaimer: I’m co-founder and CEO of openBoM developing cloud based bill of materials and inventory management tool for manufacturing companies, hardware startups and supply chain. My opinion can be unintentionally biased.
