Summer memories: Barcelona

Today the summer is over, and now, in Siberia, I reminisce couple days spent in Barcelona with my two (from six) grandchildren. These are some pictures and videos with minimum comments. 

We already know that Barcelona has won 2-1:

At the market Boqueria:

Columbus vs the man of today? :) :

The kids, lunch, and Olympic Games:

Simple Spanish/Catalan guys: 

The Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família is known by everyone as the Number One attraction of Barcelona and a masterpiece of Gaudi (click to enlarge):

I wonder what could this gentleman tell to a girl to make her so happy (click to enlarge):

This Catalan word sounds for me more expressive than all its translations that I know:

Montjuïc (according to Wikipedia translated as 'Jew Hill' in medieval Catalan, or is perhaps related to the Latin phrase Mons Jovicus ('hill of Jove')) together with its "colored and music" fountain is one of the top 10 city attractions. A view from the hill is really great (make a full screen):

Frankly, I did not understand why thousands of people compete to occupy comfortable places and are waiting 2-3 hours to see how he fountain starts. But they do wait, and they obviously are happy.     

During those waiting hours, some local people are making their business:

However a Russian child with his spontaneous parody overdanced all businessmen:

The Fountain is alive:

T-FLEX CAD – the King of Parametrization

This week, the Russian CAD/PLM company Top Systems celebrates its 20 years. Founded during difficult economic post-Sovient times by graduates of "STANKIN" (Moscow Technological University), Top Systems vigorously developed and released a full-scale parametric CAD called T-FLEX and soon after became one of the leaders of the market of CAD-related engineering software created in Russia. By now, Top Systems offers a broad spectrum of CAD+PLM solutions partially extended to the ERP direction.

See English publications about Top Systems in «The Russian MCAD Market» by Ralph Grabowski,  «T-FLEX Parametric CAD» by Deelip Menezes, as well as at http://www.tflex.com and www.isicad.net .

Today, isicad.ru published the first part of the article “T-FLEX CAD – the King of  Parametrization” (in Russian) in which two key founders of the company, Sergey Kuraksin (CEO) and Sergey Kozlov (CTO), in many details and with 32 video describe their approach and achievements regarding  parametrization  in T-FLEX CAD. The photo below taken from this paper shows the authors 20+ years ago.

Russian national platform or Microsoft?

Couple weeks ago, Russian IT and Internet community was very (positively) excited by a new Russian  Minister of Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation. 

Nikolai Nikiforov is only 30, until recently whole career of this graduate from Kazan university was within Internet. Nikolay is known by a successful implementation of the 4G LTE in Tatarstan region and by practical progress of the installment of electronic government solutions in the region.   

Today, the Russian daily VEDOMOSTY announced that Mr Nikiforov rejected an earlier existing project of implementation of the Russian national OS (probably based on Lunix). The new minister strongly believes that a much more pragmatic approach is to make a special strategic deal with Microsoft assuming special prices, application of cloud technologies for governmental services, and other. The negotiations with Microsoft has already begun. According to VEDOMOSTY, Nikiforov's decision resulted in a conflict in his ministry and resignations of some people who believe that Russia is capable (due to qualification of its specialists) and obliged (due to the national security reasons) to develop its own OS and basic platform.  

My personal opinion is that yes, it's true that Russia is potentially capable and probably obliged to implement its own platform but it does not mean that such a project can actually be efficiently organized, financed, managed, industrially implemented, installed, reliably maintained,  and so on. Which means that, maybe unfortunately, Microsoft provides more efficiency and national security for Russia...    

About Mr Nikiforov (English)

Source from VEDOMOSTY (Russian) 

DS increases its annual sales in Russia by 30%

Laurent Valroff, the director of DS Russia, was recently interviewed by the Russian review “Expert”. Two key points of the answers are

- Rumors of the death of Russian industry are greatly exaggerated,

- PLM solutions in Russia are distributed faster than globally: the fact which DS has been successfully using.

Mr Valroff has mentioned some Russian industries that rather actively assimilate modern technologies of engineering, digital design, simulation, and manufacturing: space & aircraft, automotive, shipbuilding, defense, energy, industrial equipment, and production of apparel and consumer goods. In contrast to them, electronics, medical equipment, and pharmaceutics are technologically not well developed, while in the West these sectors are today main drivers of the demand for high tech. As for AEC, this very large sector of Russian market still did not completely recover from the crisis of 2008.  

Mr Valroff gave two examples of the success stories: one related to nuclear energy stations, another - to modernization of AutoVAZ which is being implementing together with Renault. In the latter case, a new DS platform 3DEXPERIENCE can already be used.

Mr Valroff said that in 2011, DS increased its sales in Russia by at least 30%. During next three years, DS plans to double their sales in Russia.

Source (in Russian)

ASCON successfully held its customer forum in a strikingly nice place near St.Petersburg

I have just published at isicad.net a comparatively long article describing a recently held ASCON’s Forum which demonstrated strong aspiration of the company to become global.

The titles of the paper paragraphs give some idea of the content:

1. General info from CEO

2. 3D-kernel as a strong marketing message

3. How ASCON reacts to global trends

4. LOTSMAN-PDM:AEC for Android/iOS as an example of how ASCON reacts to the market trends

5. Customer’s presentations

6. My meetings with ASCON’s top managers

7. ASCON’s corporate review “Stremlenie” (Aspiration)

8. Peterhof: an ideal place to hold an efficient international event.

9. One of my recommendations to ASCON.

Here is the paper and this are some pictures of the place in question (from Google pictures, click to enlarge):

ASCON holds its Forum "White Nights" in a place perfectly suitable for the next COFES-Russia

These days, I am at the ASCON's Forum which the company is holding for its customers at Peterhof, an outskirt of Saint Petersburg. This is really a great place, just look a Wikipedia pictures and characteristic which starts with "it is a series of palaces and gardens located in Saint Petersburg, Russia, laid out on the orders of Peter the Great. These Palaces and gardens are sometimes referred as the "Russian Versailles". The palace-ensemble along with the city center is recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

ASCON, the biggest Russian CAD/PLM company, holds its Forum for the 7th time. The key participants of "White Nights" are top managers from the Russian and CIS industries. Among the topics of the Forum, there are: optimization of the business processes, best practices from the industries, recent progress in the main ASCON's products and solutions, and other.  During the last couple years ASCON, still remaining the leading Russian CAD vendor and the only competitor of Autodesk at the local market, becomes more and more dynamic and looking at the global market: establishing its office in Germany, actively participating in COFES, and integrating some Western solutions into its products.

It is at COFES in Arizona that ASCON's managers agreed on cooperation with Lightwork Design, the world’s leading supplier of rendering solutions for advanced 3D Computer Graphics. By today, the Artisan product from Lightworks is already integrated into KOMPAS-3D V13 - the key MCAD solution of ASCON. Clive Davies, Business Development Director at LightWork Design, is a special guest and invited speaker of the “White Nights” and I have had a pleasant opportunity to prepare an interview with Clive, see "Clive Davies: ASCON is proving to be the ideal partner for Lightwork Design".

By the way, it's also in Arizona a cooperation between ASCON and LEDAS has been materialized and lead to the project of incorporating into KOMPAS some key directmodeling facilities based on the LEDAS Geometric Solver (LGS). 

The Forum starts in couple hours in an nice hotel "New Peterhof" and I hope to report on its key issues. I came to Peterhof yesterday morning to have more time to visit some local places of interest that I had seen long ago in Soviet times... Today, the place is really a very comfortable touristic site with a carefully maintained environment, a lot of restaurants, an excellent Wi-Fi all around the town, and so on. Look at some pictures below: why, after the firstsuccessful experience, not to organize the next COFES-Russia here in Peterhof?  

The hotel is near the pond - over the trees, the church is 50 meters from the hotel entrance:

Here, in the pond:

And this is also at the pond, 70 meters from the hotel: 

In the world-famous park founded by Peter the Great (15 minutes of walk from the hotel): 

And here is the key point of the place:

3D Geometric Kernels as Fishes

Today, the leading Russian CAD/PLM portal isicad.ru announced its 93rd release. As always, this release is completely presented in my editorial (in Russian).

Here I just want to attract you attention to the cover page of this release. The key point is about geometric kernel C3D of ASCON which the company recently presented at COFES-2012.  The page is designed similar to the poster of a well-known movie “Arizona Dream”  by Emir Kusturica. You need not read Russian to catch the plot, except only one thing: the letters at the moon denote Russian Geometric Kernel – the project in which Top Systems and LEDAS participate (see “LEDAS announces its involvement in development of Russia’s 3D kernel”.

Please take a look at the animated version of the cover page of N93  (made by Anna Kotova, the isicad executive editor and designer) where you can at least enjoy wonderful soundtrack from the movie.

See also «A detailed informal report on COFES-2012» by Alexey Ershov, LEDAS CEO.