I’m kicking off a short series of articles reflecting on my experience at ACE 2025, the Aras Community Event that took place in Boston. I’ve followed Aras for many years—its technology, its product strategy, and most importantly, the team behind it. I was happy to be invited this year to attend the event and get a closer look at where Aras is today as it celebrates a major milestone.
Over the next few articles, I’ll share my thoughts on what I learned, the state of PLM innovation, and where the industry might be heading. But first, let’s talk about why Aras—and ACE—really matter.
A Boston Legacy and a Peter Schroer PLM Journey
ACE 2025 returned to Boston, which is more than just a geographical coincidence. Aras was co-founded here and is deeply rooted in the rich technology and innovation landscape of the Boston area. For those of us who’ve spent time in the PLM world, Boston is more than a city—it’s a part of PLM history.
The story of Aras has threads connecting back to Eigner + Partner (Eigner PLM), the company Peter Schroer, Aras’ founder worked at before starting Aras. That’s also where he worked alongside Martin Eigner, one of the thought leaders and early innovators in PLM. You can feel that legacy reflected not only in the people but also in Aras’ commitment to model-driven architecture, engineering rigor, and system flexibility.
25 Years of Aras – A Rare PLM Story
This year marks the 25th anniversary of Aras—a remarkable achievement in any software domain, but especially so in PLM. Very few companies in the PLM space—not products, but actual independent companies—have lasted this long without being acquired or merged into larger portfolios.
To me, the most important milestone in Aras’ journey was the bold and visionary decision to embrace the Enterprise Open Source model back in 2007. It was, frankly, a genius move. By distributing Aras Innovator for free—with zero upfront cost—Aras was able to grow its influence across industries and geographies, completely bypassing traditional enterprise software sales barriers.
This shift allowed customers to try, use, and even build on Aras before signing a subscription deal, which was completely unconventional in the world of PLM at that time. Huge kudos to Peter Schroer, Aras’ founder, and Marc Lind, who played a key role in shaping Aras’ unique go-to-market and messaging strategies.
That decision created a snowball effect—allowing Aras to build momentum, attract a passionate user and developer base, and evolve the platform based on real-world needs and feedback.
Why Aras—and ACE—Matter to the PLM Community
The PLM community is a special group of people. It’s not just about software—it’s about shared experience, systems thinking, deep domain knowledge, and long-lasting relationships. Over the years, I’ve learned that PLM is not something you “plug in.” It’s something you build, shape, and evolve—and the people who understand that tend to stick around.
Aras has always resonated with this community. Why? Because it speaks the same language—of flexibility, openness, and real-world engineering challenges. Its vision of PLM is not vendor-locked or monolithic—it’s agile, adaptable, and continuously improving.
That’s why ACE is important. It’s more than just a conference—it’s a meeting place for people who have been part of this long PLM journey. You meet engineers, IT folks, architects, CIOs, academics, and startup innovators. The vibe is open, and the discussions go deep. You don’t get that everywhere.
Three Things That Make Aras Stand Out
Let me highlight three core elements of Aras that continue to stand out in the PLM space:
1. Data Modeling and Flexibility
At its core, PLM is all about managing complex product data. Aras Innovator’s modeling engine, built on SQL, offers a high level of flexibility. It allows customers to adapt the system to their specific processes—without breaking the core platform. That kind of extensibility is what real-world PLM deployments need.
2. Openness
Aras lives and breathes openness—in architecture, in deployment, in business model. The decision to offer open download access to Aras Innovator, to support community-developed solutions, and to make upgrades part of a value-driven subscription model is a testament to a different mindset. It’s not marketing talk—it’s embedded in how Aras operates.
3. Community
The Aras community is one of its strongest assets. It’s not just about support forums—it’s about people who believe in the platform because they’ve helped shape it. Whether you’re an engineer implementing a change process, a consultant deploying a digital thread, or a developer writing new extensions, there’s a sense of ownership and pride. And that’s rare.
What is my conclusion?
The technology and manufacturing industries are moving fast. The focus is shifting toward open platforms, data interoperability, and digital transformation across value chains. As we move into this future, Aras’ commitment to openness, flexibility, and community-centric innovation sets an example the PLM world can learn from.
It’s been 25 years—and a lot has changed—but the core values that Aras brought to PLM are more relevant than ever. More to come in the next article…
Just my thoughts…
Pictures credit Michael Finocciaro and Roque Martin posts on LinkedIn.
Disclaimer: I’m the co-founder and CEO of OpenBOM, a digital-thread platform providing cloud-native collaborative services including PDM, PLM, and ERP capabilities. With extensive experience in federated CAD-PDM and PLM architecture, I’m advocates for agile, open product models and cloud technologies in manufacturing. My opinion can be unintentionally biased
