Cloud PLM vendors and infrastructure wars

Who will win cloud war? BOLD business article brings an interesting comparison between vendors and the funny picture I reference above. A war is on.

The competitive world of cloud computing is not for faint-hearted companies. These top providers have made the impossible things become possible and easier for a lot of people, their clients, and different businesses. Cloud Computing is definitely important and it has created a bold impact on the digital transformation.

ZDNet article from the last week speaks about cloud infrastructure wars. Navigate here – Cloud wars 2018: 6 things we learned in the first half to get more details. Long story short, it is about 4 vendors.

The field narrows dramatically. Gartner landed with its Magic Quadrant and basically whittled the IaaS market down to a big three in leadership. Not surprisingly, those three were AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform, which broke into the leadership quadrant. What was surprising is that Gartner thinks only 6 cloud infrastructure players matter–AWS, Azure, Google, IBM, Alibaba Cloud and Oracle.

Here is Gartner MQ for cloud infrastructures:

What does it mean for PLM vendors? Well… remember how we made development 20 years ago? First, we always choose a database. It was the most important piece of infrastructure. IT usually has a right to veto your decision. So, choosing Microsoft SQL, Oracle or DB2 has direct implementation on your sales and influence.

The story repeats, but with cloud infrastructure providers. Are you running on Amazon? Good… it is an obvious choice for many companies as a first cloud platform to support. Remember multi-database and incompatible SQL commands? It can give you an idea of supporting multiple cloud platforms.

What PLM vendors are doing about cloud infrastructure wars? I decided to make a quick checkup and to share with you what mainstream cloud PLM vendors are supporting.

Aras Corp is defining Innovator true cloud solution. You can find references of Aras Innovator compatibility with Amazon EC2 back in 2010. Not sure what is available – I didn’t find live references, but partners like Minerva can provide Aras hosted with Amazon. Check here. But main platform for Aras in the cloud is of course – Aras on Microsoft Azure.

Dassault Systemes 3DEXPERIENCE is relying on Outscale as a special provider of cloud hosting services. In the interview published by CIMdata you can read more about it. Amazon Web services are certified as well. Dassault Systemes is diversifying their cloud solution. At the same time, I guess hosting Oracle which is main MatrixOne (3DEXPERIENCE) platform is expensive. Therefore Dassault Systemes is investing in Boston based NuoDB. Check more here.

Oracle Agile PLM strategy about cloud infrastructure is not clear to me. Oracle has big plans to develop and promote Oracle based cloud solution, but in my view it has nothing to do with Agile PLM. I know few service companies hosting Agile PLM using variety of cloud infrastructure.

PTC Widnchill PLM cloud is available with multiple hosting options. Check CIMdata interview with Kevin Wrenn and also read Amazon and Azure announcements. I didn’t find a transparent hosting model.  I found also 3rd parties doing cloud based hosting for Windchill PLM.

SAP seems to be compatible with everything. But it is hard to differentiate between SAP and SAP PLM when it comes to cloud infrastructure. So, I’m still looking for more data.

Siemens PLM Teamcenter has the most power to acquire everyone to make a their cloud with better coverage. Siemens PLM supports Amazon, Azure services. I even found a 3rd part, with available service to run Windchill on Google cloud platform.

I’m sure missed few links saying how to deploy various PLM solutions on cloud IaaS. If you have them, please post them in the comments.

What is my conclusion? PLM vendors are getting ready for cloud infrastructure competition. Big corporation will make their big bets and big PLM vendors will have to adjust. At the same time, you don’t need to support all cloud platforms unless your customer is demanding you to do so. Ubiquitous character of the cloud will make it available everywhere and force providers of software to comply. For majority of potential PLM vendors, platform doesn’t make much difference. It is simplicity and ease of use, which make sense. 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.

Picture courtesy of BOLD business article.