PTC is Acquiring Onshape

The new came online just a few hours ago about PTC is entering the agreement to acquire Onshape. The PTC press release is here:

You can read this passage with quotes from Jim Heppleman and Jon Hirschtick.

“PTC has earned a reputation for successfully pursuing new innovations that drive corporate growth,” said Jim Heppelmann, president and CEO, PTC. “Building on the strong momentum we have with our on-premises CAD and PLM businesses, we look to our future and see a new growth play with SaaS.”

This acquisition is the logical next step in PTC’s overall evolution to a recurring revenue business model, the first step of which was the company’s successful transition to subscription licensing, completed in January 2019. The SaaS model, while nascent in the CAD and PLM market, is rapidly becoming industry best practice across most other software domains.

“Today, we see small and medium-sized CAD customers in the high-growth part of the CAD market shifting their interest toward SaaS delivery models, and we expect interest from larger customers to grow over time,” continued Heppelmann. “The acquisition of Onshape complements our on-premises business with the industry’s only proven, scalable pure SaaS platform, which we expect will open new CAD and PLM growth opportunities while positioning PTC to be the leader as the market transitions toward the SaaS model.”

If you’ve been following my article about Onshape since it was founded, you can find some interesting lines, you’ve been probably aware of design cloud platform Onshape was building.

There are many articles, but I’d recommend you to catch up technological aspects first because, in my view, it is technological acquisition for PTC looking at how to speed up their cloud innovation.

PLM Thoughts After Onshape Public Beta

Existing PDM paradigm is dying in the hands of Onshape

Onshape and cloud API architecture

Onshape quietly developed Google Drive for CAD

More articles from Beyond PLM about Onshape is here. Also, check my blog from last week about Onshape Boston User Group.

What is my conclusion? It is a very interesting move by PTC. For the last few years, we’ve seen a strong acquisition move by PTC acquiring new technologies pioneering new markets and business models. Onshape technological foundation and experience in building cloud SaaS platforms are what PTC is looking for. And CAD / PLM market is on the strong move towards building online multi-tenant cloud platforms. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

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.