October helps to better understand the market of Engineering Software in Russia: ASCON, Autodesk, COFES Russia, Top Systems, SW, DS, Delcam-ESI…

I have just published at isicad.net an overview of the Russian market based on the vendor's events held in October. The first paragraph of the report says:

 The cover of the 99th issue (October, 2012) of isicad.ru reflects several events related to the Russian market of engineering software (see all the covers). Some of them mainly belong to the genre of marketing. However, smart marketing not only can shape customers’ demands but in the long run transforms vendor’s virtual manipulations into their innovative software… Some important characteristics of the Russian market are described in the reports from numerous events held in October. Unfortunately, most of the links are in Russian however, I will try to give you some flavor of the state of art.

Here are the titles of the report sections:

October, 2. ASCON’s autumn harvest

October, 2-4. Bricsys Technologies Russia is moving Bricsys into the MCAD niche

BTW: ZWSOFT.ru 

Octover, 3 and 4. The First Autodesk University in Russia

October, 6. Towards COFES Russia 2013

October 8. Lotsia Soft, the Russian PLM leader?

October 16-18. Top Systems presents its successful experience of development & installation of PLM+ERP

October 18. SolidWorks has a lot of very devoted and compassionate fans in Russia: can it increase the company’s Russian market share?

October 19. Bernard CHARLES visited Moscow to announce that DS leaves its competitors alone to play with PLM

October 18-25. By hosting ESI-Russia, Delcam Ural strengthens its already strong multi-VAR position

October 25-29. SDI Solution is a partner of everybody?

October 30. Location and industrial development of Yekaterinburg attract all vendors.

See the full text of the report.

Six main implementations of direct modeling will be compared by eight parameters at Autodesk Forum in Moscow

On Sept, 22 at Autodesk Forum in Moscow, Dmitry Ushakov, LEDAS CEO, will deliver an invited talk “Who and Why Needs Direct Modeling?”.

    Dmitry was an ideologist and initiator of the LEDAS project on direct modeling, he proposed an original approach to DM, called Variational DM, with emphasis on keeping design intent, see links below. By today, LEDAS has made a considerable progress in industrial implementations of VDM: in the end-user products  Driving Dimensions SketchUp and RhinoWorks as well in two projects on incorporation of VDM into widely-known CADs outsourced at LEDAS.  

    Along with explanation of what is DM, Dmitry will outline eight features of DM and, according to (un)availability of these features, he will present his comparison of DM implementations in SpaceClaim, SPLM, LEDAS, DS, Autodesk, and PTC. 


Taking into account his audience, Dmitry will pay some special attention to Inventor Fusion.  The article based on Dmitry’s Moscow presentation will very probably be published at least at www.isicad.net.

Links:

VariationalDirect Modeling: How to Keep Design Intent in History-Free CAD  

How toExpress Design Intent in Rhino 3D    

SynchronousTechnology: The Third Attempt  

DrivingDimensions SketchUp and RhinoWorks

AutodeskMoscow Forum full program 

CAD/PLM in June: How I Saw It From Russia Or Within the Country. Part I: Top Systems and Siemens PLM

You may consider this post as a June part of an overview which almost quarterly I try to compose at isicad.net (see for example this). On the other hand, this post is to some extent an overview of my Russian posts of June. This combination has a contradiction since in the English isicad.net overviews I aim to present some key issues of the Russian market while my Russian blog of course includes some comments on events of the global market. Besides, my Russian posts usually include a lot of Russian cultural context which I am absolutely not able to transform into English…

1. At the beginning of June, Top Systems, the second (after ASCON) Russian CAD/PLM company known first of all by its powerful Parasolid-based  MCAD T-FLEX, held its big annual conference. At the conference the company announced “PLM+” characterized as follows:  «Its fundamental distinction from traditional PLM solutions is an essential extension of integrated software environment which now covers not only tasks of life-cycle but all its accompanying processes».  (For the first time this PLM+ was briefly mentioned by Top System CEO Sergei Kuraksin at COFES-Russia-2010 seminar in Moscow). In one of my June posts  I asked Sergei “What traditional PLM solutions he means, maybe those of DS, Siemens, PTC, ARAS or even Autodesk? What are the tasks not covered by traditional PLM that are solved by PLM+? Are there any tasks solved by traditional PLM and not solved by PLM+ based on T-FLEX?...”  

My conclusion was that although Top Systems do not follow modern trends of mobility, social networking, SaaS, and other, the company can probably succeed with some big Russian enterprises, say from defense domain, that are traditionally more conservative. (Note, that Top Systems has quite a good customer base since the company basic solutions are actually effective, however until recent time, marketing of Top Systems was rather rudimentary). Finally, I wrote that such gigantomania may be a result of some inferiority complex, and, building PLM+ may help in its satisfaction:). Later, in the comment section of my post, we had with Sergei a nice discussion, and soon Top Systems has published an article which made their PLM+ concept more clear, it looks like that PLM+ is PLM+ERP (you can conclude this from the TLAs seen at the picture below).

My above mentioned post has a title “Prompt Psycho(analysis) of Some Recent CAD Publications”. Along with Top Systems, I touched there Siemens PLM and PTC. 

2. With an objective to give Russian readers my impression about «Global Launch Solid Edge ST4» I retold and commented couple posts of Roopinder Tara. I am not going to retell them for you. One small terminology nuance attracted my attention: Tony Affuso speaks not about necessity to work more with SME but with midstream enterprises. Is small not a word from Siemens PLM lexicon? At least subconsciously?  

My own opinion about Solid Edge and its future:

- ST is a successful pioneer of Direct Modeling which will inevitably win the future of MCAD (we at LEDAS are confident about this not only from publications but from our own projects),

-Solid Edge is definitely a very good system (it’s a pity that Siemens never agreed to give LEDAS trial versions or so: was this because of the  competition between D-Cubed and LGS),

- I estimate the probability for Solid Edge  to rise from its current (3rd?) to 1st or 2dn place (today kept by SW and Inventor) or even to approach them as much as 5% - practically independent of SPLM marketing efforts,

- However  we can rather probably soon hear about something like hundreds if not thousand installations of Solid Edge to one or other “Daimler-Benz”:),  

- 5% of positive probability I give to the scenarios such as «DS actually kills SW» or/and  «Autodesk makes something crazy with Inventor »:).

BTW, I am pleased to mention a remarkable and very large interview with Chuck Grindstaff, President and CTO of Siemens PLM Software taken by Alexandra Sukhanova, executive editor of the Russian language magazine “CAD/CAM/CAE Observer” published in Riga, Latvia.

Just look at the great gallery of interviews taken by Alexandra during last several years). It would be strange to retell here the interview with Chuck called “The revolution in CAD/PLM should not lead to discontinuity of innovation process”), I can only mention that he perfectly combines his CTO role (characteristics of SPLM solutions) and that of the President (characteristics of competitors and comparison of SPM with them). It looks like he is strict and biased to DS (main and dangerous competitor?), demonstrates  indulgence to PTC (not main competitor?), and does not take seriously Autodesk (not a competitor at all in SPLM key business?)… Alexandra kindly permitted me to re-publish this interview at isicad.ru, and I hope we will see an interesting discussion.  

See Part II: PTC, ASCON and Autodesk

Shashlik with Oleg Shilovitsky

Today, in Raanana, Israel, I met Oleg Shilovitsky. We ate several types of shashliks/kebabs and discussed some issues of mutual interest. Among them (the issues, not shashliks): semantic methods in data management, prospects of PTC, Autodesk, DS, ASCON, TopSystems, what are chances of SolidEdge, business of Inforbix, business of LEDAS, iPhone-4, Twitter, COFES, isicad, and many other.  

Our conclusion: life is hard but very interesting. 

Just our thoughts:) 

An overview of automakers’ PLM systems: Siemens PLM Connection and Russian TV

Yesterday automotiveIT.com published an overview of automakers’ PLM systems. It's interesting to compare a table and comments from this article:

with a slide recently demonstrated at Siemens PLM Connection 2011 as likely a proof of a full victory in a PLM-race in automobile industry:

.

isicad.ru in its news (in Russian) complements the automotiveIT overview by the following comment.   

    "We calculated the number of references of products from every PLM-vendor:
- Siemens PLM (NX, Teamcenter, Tecnomatix): 34 systems at 15 automobile companies
- Dassault Systemes (Catia, Enovia, Delmia): 21 --- at 12 
- PTC (Creo, Windchill): 7 --- at 5.

    Siemens PLM is actually the leader however Siemens PLM and Dassault Systemes have comparable number of customers. Moreover if we consider CAD domain, CATIA has 10 customers against 8 of NX and 5 of Creo. The slide from Siemens PLM Connections is of course not lies but its relation to the reality and selectivity can be compared with a news from today's Russian state TV".

I do not believe and do not insist that such technology of seleciton and presentation is a unique invention of Siemens or Russian TV:) 

isicad.ru N80: Cloud CAD Against Drawing Board

The monthly overview by Vladimir Malukh from the just issued N80 of isicad.ru (in Russian) include in partucular:

- during the company press-conference, ASCON organized a competition between its cloud KOMPAS 3D and a drawing board,

- The Bolshoi Theater has licensed a number of Autodesk products; in April-November the "Russian Community of Autodesk Users" will attend 13 cities of CIS to meet local users,

- INTERMECH released a unique system which can find geometrically similar shapes for Autodesk Inventor, Solid Works, Solid Edge, NX, ProEngineer и KOMPAS 3D,

- for the first time in history SolidWorks in Russia will be supervised by DS...

See Vladimir's review of March in Russian and google-translated.

N80 aminated cover page reflects the above mentioned news about Bolshoi. You don't need to know Russian language to catch the essenses of a lot of previous cover pages (click to enlarge - sometimes animated).

Does SolidWorks Have Competitors in the Russian Market?

SolidWorks is rather successful in Russia, the fact which was confirmed at SWW 2011 and also at the previous such events. This, as well as probably new relations between DS and SW, for the first time in history resulted in establishing a position of the head of DSSW representative in Russia. Pavel Bruk (39) who was appointed to this position is a kind of unique guy: his CV includes education in airspace design, Computervision, Innovation and Design Center in Liverpool University, Unigraphics (incl. PDM, working in Germany,…), Intel, Autodesk, Bentley Systems, and at last (since Jan 2011) – DS.

In a recently published big interview for a Russian language magazine CAD/CAM/CAE Observer, Pavel made a series of sharp statements that many people will definitely not agree. Here are some fragments from the interview.

What are some explicit functional advantages of SolidWorks in comparison with KOMPAS-3D?

This is exactly the case when it’s reasonable to consider functional differences. At present KOMPAS-3D is lagging behind at least, by 5 years. The existing KOMPAS 3D functionality, accepted methods of work, the geometric kernel- all this is non-competitive in comparison with systems of the SolidWorks class...

In a recent interview to our magazine, Eugene Lesnikov from Autodesk CIS said that it was not reasonable to compare Inventor with SolidWorks and SolidEdge, since Inventor has no "big brother" who would inhibit its growth. What do you think - as specialist who worked earlier for SPLM and Autodesk? Perhaps Inventor should then be compared in functionality with CATIA and NX?

I am somewhat surprised to hear such words from a man who definitely knows what is PLM (E.Lesnikov was earlier working in IBM with DS: DL)...Rather, Inventor has a problem with his "little brother"- AutoCAD. We have repeatedly witnessed how in the case of financial problems at Autodesk, all the powers and resources were trasferred to support platform business. Therefore, investments into Inventor are from time to time in danger ...Besides, Autodesk became involved in things uncharacteristic for engineers. Adding Alias and CAE (Moldflow, Algor, Blue) is an unsuccessful attempt to capture a part of the market with a help of Inventor…

It would be interesting to know your opinion about a couple SE-NX?

As you know, Siemens does not publish any data on such sales. In my estimation, Solid Edge is very much lost ground, especially in Russia. Perhaps, Siemens will try to catch up. It will be interesting to watch this attempt: perhaps Solid Edge can bite off a part of the Inventor market...

At the picture above: Pavel Bruk at COFES-Russia / isicad-2011.

The interview in Russian

Google translated version

Russian Social Networking: In and Beyond the CAD/PLM Market

Russia is often considered as actively growing in all Internet-related directions but still lagging behind in social networking - especially at the enterprise level. For example at COFES-Russia / isicad-2010 some foreign experts talked about this lagging behind as obvious while the Russian attendees supported this discussion by their explanations why total networking is premature for the Russian market.

Recently I ran across a report of DigitalLife, whose study presented a global data on social networking and characterized Russia as one of the leaders:

... the study showed that online consumers are, on average, spending more time on social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn than on email, despite the former only becoming mainstream in many markets over the last few years. In rapid growth markets such as Latin America, the Middle East and China, the average time spent, per week, on social networking is 5.2 hours compared to only 4 hours on email. Online consumers in mature markets remain more reliant on email, spending 5.1 hours checking their inboxes compared to just 3.8 hours on social networking. The heaviest users of social networking are in Malaysia (9 hours per week), Russia (8.1 hours per week) and Turkey (7.7 hours per week).

Usually I am quite skeptical about statistics in general and in particular about statistics gathered by global organizations in the huge Russian territory. However I trust my own impressions and they correspond to the DL conclusions.

I leave aside considerations about what percent of garbage information is circulating in the Russian Internet, instead I formulate for myself these two questions:

(1) What are the reasons of very high activity in the Russian social networks?

(2) Why social networking is sluggishly used at the Russian enterprise level?

As for the answer to (1), I believe that, ceteris paribus, high networking activity in Russia reflects shortage of other forms of social activity, including political.

There is a popular quote (almost saying) "A poet in Russia is more than just a poet" from a poem (1965) of Evgeny Evtushenko who meant that, when political activity is restricted, a poet can willy-nilly become a public figure with a political flavor. Note that in Russia this likely can be applied to practically all historic periods. Amusingly, in one of his inauguration speeches Putin used this saying as "The President in Russia is more than just a President" :) . Finally, a blogger in Russia is more than just a blogger :).

As for (2), a typical Russian individual (independently of what he or she is pretending to look like) is reflexively skeptical about any official orderliness or even rejects it. With this opinion in mind, I can consider one more question:

(3) Why CAD/PLM user forums independent of vendors are so popular in Russia?

Here are some possible reasons:

- Even the best vendor forums/blogs have some flavor of orderliness,

- There are still a lot of illegal users and they would feel uncomfortable at vendors web sites,

- Independent forums enable any critics making comments regarding any products and their comparison while vendors can hardly permit such discussions...

All main vendors have their Russian blogs, forums, twitters... and are doing their best to intensify communication with their customer communities. Note rather detailed Russian forums of ASCON and Autodesk-CIS, nice blogs of DS Russia and Autodesk-CIS, etc. However all similar networking vendor's facilities cannot compete with such independent forums like www.fsapr2000.ru or www.dwg.ru, which has 30 000 active daily visitors and 4 000 000 monthly views. Roughly speaking, we can distinguish between (a) people's forums that are independent and horizontal, (b) vendor's forums that sometimes can with great talent imitate informality, and (c) imaginary enterprise networking which seems to have some regulatory, formal, orderliness, and vertical features, and for which imitation of informality would be unnatural and hardly acceptable.

These differences, due to the above mentioned cultural reasons, are very pronounced in Russia and remain an obstacle for usage of the up-to-date enterprise networking infrastructures and tools (if enterprise networking is something efficient and demanded). Does this problem exist in the West? Hopefully mature experts of social networking can give me an answer or/and perhaps dispel my possible misunderstanding.

The picture above is taken from digitalstrategyconsulting.

CAD Revolution: Inevitable and Already Started

There are several more or less obvious objective and subjective reasons to systematize the main trends in CAD/PLM development at the beginning of 2011. The isicad editorial board has asked its leading expert and reviewer Vladimir Malukh to characterize these trends, and his opinion formed the basis for the article published two weeks ago at isicad.ru in Russian and just published in English at isicad.net.

To give a more pronounced position of isicad.ru, Vladimir’s paper is extended by the Appendix combining an interview with the author and some elements of a Round Table, involving along with Vladimir Malukh, also Dmitry Ushakov and me.

Vladimir has outlined 12 trends and then we commented some of them. For example, we discussed whether Autodesk, DS, or SpaceClaim can really be acquired. Dmitry added his opinion about future of direct editing. I espressed some concerns related to whether CAD could or should be used by everyone. Also I said something about a very simplified approach to a so-called sustainable design...

What Publications on CAD/PLM are the Most Popular in Russia?

It seems usual for all kinds of media to announce their year-end statistics. I will now make this for the Russian versions of the isicad portal and of my blog that hopefully gives some impression about distribution of interests and preferences in the Russian market.

Top 10 of isicad.ru (from 527 publications of 2010)

1. Software renewal is rather investments than expenses. An interview with Anastasia Morozova, Field Marketing Area Team Manager, Autodesk Russia and CIS

2. What Affects Adoption of BIM in Russia? Vladimir Talapov (Novosibirsk Architecture Academy)

3. KOMPAS-3D V12 to be Released in May: Interview with Vladimir Zakharov, CTO of ASCON

4. AutoCAD 2011 brings 3D to the Mass Market. Ilya Tatarnikov (LEDAS)

5. What People Usually Mean by BIM. Vladimir Talapov

6. Is it possible to Make CAD 200 Times Faster? Dmitry Ushakov

7. To Increase Adoption of PLM in Russia We Need a Competitive Environment. An Interview with Dmitry Osnatch, Marketing Director of ASCON.

8. How We See CAD/PLM in 2020. Vladimir Malukh, Dmitry Ushakov (both - LEDAS)

9. How We Make CAD. Notes of a Russian Software Developer. Dmitry Kapyshin (CADEZY)

10. Not Just Almost Everything about Autodesk 2010-2011 in Russia. An interview with Anastasia Morozova, Field Marketing Area Team Manager, Autodesk Russia and CIS.

(Note that 9 and 10 were published quite recently).

Top 10 of David Levin Russian Blog (from 215 posts of 2010)

1. Cloud: the Most Fashionable Word in CAD?
2. AutoCAD for $50 or The torrents.ru Case
3. From AutoCAD 2011 and KOMPAS-3D to SolidWorks-2011
4. DS Wants to Kill AutoCAD
5. AutoCAD 2011 is More Cool than Ashton Catcher and Avatar
6. Working Days of CAD Market Competition
7. Innovative Economy in Russia: Inevitable Future or a Dream?
8. On a Reflex of Contempt for What is not a Short-term and Freestuff: in CAD and in General
9. SolidWorks, PLM, and Enovia Meet in Clouds
10. What is New in Autodesk Inventor 2011

Now - some simple conclusions:

- Autodesk and ASCON are definitely the most popular CAD vendors in Russia,

- Inventor hardly enjoys popularity of Autodesk, however its popularity at the level of SW, DS, PLM,... is perhaps honorable for Autodesk,

- People are VERY sensitive to the topics of (il)legal software which from my point of view reflects a considerable progress in overcoming the problem in Russia - definitely an important topic to discuss separately,

- People are more and more interested in technology, trends, overviews, test drives... - if they trust the authors:),

- As always and everywhere, people are obviously attracted by topics of competition, conflicts between vendors, ..., whatever flavor of sensation...

Autodesk, DS, Geomagic, IBM, Kubotek, PTC, Siemens, and other at COFES-Israel

The COFES (Congress on the Future of the Engineering Software) events that are annually held in April in Arizona by Cyon Research are quite well known as probably the only international multi-vendor conference with no direct marketing flavor. If you don’t know COFES visit www.cofes.com. This year the main global conference was complemented by two regional forums: in Moscow (in September) and in Tel Aviv, Israel (last week).

The Forum in Tel-Aviv was attended by about 80 people who represented all CAD/PLM

market leaders and a lot of interesting companies including international analytical agencies.

There were fourteen 12-minutes talks (including opening and concluding speeches) sectioned into four sessions. 45-minute breaks enabled some interesting informal meetings, for example I succeeded to talk to those 5 persons with whom I had had plans to meet.

Condensed format of both forums in Russia and Israel could not provide time for one of the key points of the Arizona COFES, its possibility to talk during outdoor walks. Here in Hilton Tel-Aviv the outdoor could be implemented by coming out to the terrace and feel envy to those relaxing on the beach – which was especially exciting for those who came to Israel from snowy and frosty countries.

All the presentations were quite interesting, but I would give the first three places to correspondingly: Brian Shepherd (PTC), Chris De Neef (Fast Track Consulting, Belgium), and Eitan Yudilevich (BIRD Foundation, Israel).

In his concluding remarks, Brad Holtz characterized further COFES plans: for sure the next key event will be the full-scale 3-day COFES-2011 conference "Innovations in the Face of Complexity" in Arizona.

My brief characteristics of all the presentations along with 17 photos are given in the isicad.net article "Innovations Should be More Practical, Less Political. COFES-Israel Forum Report". There one can also read my comparison of COFES-Israel and COFES-Russia.

One point from that comparison is the following. Today in Russia, the topic of innovation is politically loaded, it goes top down and is mainly monopolized by the state. Therefore, people in labs and in small companies who practice innovations, automatically - according to the fundamentals of Russian culture, consider and interpret innovation ironically if not worse. However no politics, profanation, or irony can cancel the processes objectively demanded by society and history. I’d prefer to see a situation in Russia when practicioners consider innovation as not only politics and discuss such topics more seriously and pragmatically. At the same time, I don’t want to be considered naïve. Obviously such general and global topics like innovation, independently on countries, are inevitably politicized and give opportunities for additional profits to politicians and analysts: be such profits materialized or reputational or other. Really important is what then happens with innovation itself...

See also official page of COFES Israel and related posts in Oleg Shilovitsky blog.

All about AutoCAD for Windows, Mac, Linux, clouds, and other

On 7 October, Vladimir Malukh by skype interviewed Miikka Arala, EMEA Industry and Marketing Development Manager at Autodesk.

Ten questions were about:

- CAD as SaaS

- 3D parameterization for AutoCAD

- Direct modeling for AutoCAD

- AutoCAD: Windows vs Mac

- AutoCAD for Linux

- Mac/Linux vs cloud-based

- Handy multi-touch functionality

- AutoCAD and conceptual design

- AutoCAD and stereo display

- Will DS entering DWG-business impact AutoCAD marketing and pricing?

See full English and Russian texts of the interview.

My vision of the plenary session at isicad-2010/COFES

In these remarks I would like to review the plenary (morning) session of isicad-2010 / COFES-Russia.

I must confess that initially we had hot discussions with Brad Holtz about the style of this event. Brad reasonably wished it to be a COFES Forum, and I was trying to explain that Russian vendors or (to be more precise) vendors in Russia are more used to workshops, which enable to supply certain vendor information to the audience (primarily – tell your clients about your solutions), while forums as some kind of meetings to discuss problems common to all attendees raise some doubts in the eyes of our vendors … The ends were gained by a kind of art: isicad-2010 is boldly called Forum and COFES-Russia goes by seminar – just in case... :). I take the liberty to further on refer to our common event as the Forum.

Jokes aside, overall the event has good chances to become a true Forum. First, the Working Groups and the concluding Round Table (combined with a press-conference) undoubtedly are the sites for forum discussions. Second, the final composition and format of plenary sessions justify the Forum style - if not completely, than certainly to a considerable degree. To be able to include maximum possible number of conceptual talks, we have drastically cut down the average time for presentations, introducing three options: 5, 10 and 15 minutes (excluding the Invited Talk). It is implied that to outline the essential ideas and concepts, define global trends, specify generally important problems, and the like, does not require too much time, unlike describing features of a new product or its new version. I’d like to emphasize that all speakers and companies that they represent showed full understanding of this approach and did not insist on extended time for their talks.

For advertizing, I dared translate into Russian the title of the invited talk by Brad Holtz simply as “A Vision of Global CAD/PLM Market till 2015”. In original it sounds more sophisticated: «Cyon Research Report: A vision of global market dynamics for design and engineering software, including results and implications of recent surveys of the global engineering software community».

Martin Steuer, who represents Autodesk – the general Forum partner, will focus on the issue that, gradually overcoming public skepticism, is becoming more and more pressing – the role of “sustainable design”. The established Russian translation (“environmentally rational design”) somewhat reduces the idea of globality, while an English word sustainable emphasizes fundamental concept of sustainable development which is more and more globally recognized as a scenario for survival of mankind. Thus sustainable design can be considered as a projection of a world-wide objective to our industry. Today most market leaders devote much attention to this topic, and Autodesk have accumulated considerable and generally valuable results in this field.

The 5-minute talk by Oleg Shilovitsky is the introduction to the agenda of No.1 Working Group: "Trends in PLM” and an invitation to active participation in discussions. Besides, Oleg believes that the boundaries between not always clearly defined PLM, ERP, PDM, CAD,.. should and will become more precise in the future... Today these boundaries are mostly tentative, thus the solutions are far from being steady and reflect a mesmeric magic of Three-Letter-Acronyms (TLAs)...

Representatives of those vendors that successfully implement such solutions in real markets on a daily basis, may justly disagree with magically vague interpretations of such concepts as PLM. The presentation of Laurent Valroff and Artem Avedyan (Dassault Systemes) promises to demonstrate to us that development of today’s TLA is related not only or not so to the need for significant clarification of basic solutions, but rather to expansion of the field of employment of such solutions. The expansion that may turn out to be quite radical and not so obvious.

Sergey Kuraksin will certainly his express not less (and possibly even more) pragmatic vision of PLM. What kind of magic we can talk about if Top Systems has developed and is implementing a PLM-package, understood not only as a full-scale world-class system for which there is real demand, but also as a system with important embedded qualities so vital precisely for a Russian market. Perhaps the global market should pay more attention to this solution?

The 5-minute talk by Deelip Menezis is the introduction to the agenda of No.2 Working Group: “Intelligent methods of 3D-modeling”. Whatever you may say, but the issues of geometry concern majority of vendors and users, therefore any news that some cure-all solution has been found (direct modeling? synchronous technology?) leave no one indifferent, and today every global CAD leader must have an actual or an announced solution in this field. However, Deelip Menezis, who is familiar with all such solutions of the industry leaders, recently wrote in his blog that in Moscow he would state that contrary to the rumors the problems of geometry were not solved at all (“nothing is further from the truth”).

After such Deelip’s statement, the 15-minute presentation of Bruno Chollat “The Role of 3D Direct Modeling in the Product Development Cycle” will be especially interesting to listen to. Bruno represents SpaceClaim, which is positioned as the leader in the field of direct modeling, and, judging by the title of his presentation, he interprets this technology as today’s reality.

Another counterbalance to a useful Deelip’s skepticism will be the 5-minute talk by Dmitry Ushakov, of LEDAS. The company is developing a version of direct modeling, which emphasizes the end quality – automated support of user’s intent rather than technically important and actually supported by LEDAS characteristics (parameterization and history-free design). At No.2 Working Group Dmitry plans to give a more detailed account of the opinion of LEDAS experts the true essence of intelligent 3D-modeling.

According to the preliminary statistics, the most popular Working Group, and its agenda, promises to be WG-5 "New Business Models for CAD/PLM market (cloud computations, open code, free platforms…)". It is not surprising that ultimately everyone is interested in business... Nanosoft Company recently has broken into the market with sensational business models, first of all, based on a free-of-charge platform. Thus, the presentation of Nanosoft CEO Maxim Egorov should be of special interest: we hope to learn about the company’s experience, possible evolution of its business policy and even “unclassified” plans. This presentation can be the introduction to WG-5, which will also be moderated by a Nanosoft representative Dmitry Popov.

Most certainly WG-5 will have an exciting discussion as ASCON has registered as one of the active group members. The title of a short introductory presentation “Russian CAD companies will not wait for imported wings to take off to clouds”, which on behalf of ASCON will be delivered by Oleg Zykov, is self-explanatory. At WG-5 Oleg hopes to support his plenary talk with a short demonstration.

IT history goes along with the drama of software developers: to some extent their heroic intellectual deeds and breakthrough are often devaluated by subsequent hardware development. It is simply my flirtatious self-irony: in fact I am convinced that achievements and endeavors of software programmers are not in vain, they will always be required and their devaluation is not possible… Still, new hardware capabilities certainly open totally new horizons and software developers must be extremely sensitive and closely follow hardware development so their next heroic deeds are not based on obsolete platforms… That is why the talk of Anton Dzhoraev (NVIDIA) is so important to us. “New graphical capabilities to support next CAD generation” will round up the plenary morning session. Anton will continue his talk at WG-6 “New Hardware Technologies for Engineering Software”.

New hardware technologies certainly cover state-of-the art broad-format printing that will be generously demonstrated by HP – the general Forum sponsor. In the lobby HP will organize a display/exhibition of its new products and their capabilities will be discussed at WG-6. HP capacity will be further demonstrated at the exhibition of students projects.

See also Round Tables and Their Moderators... and Media at COFES-Russia... .

Dassault Systèmes Chooses Restaurant "Pushkin" to Explain What is Life-like Experience

PR agency Fleishman-Hillard Vanguard on behalf of Dassault Systemes Russia invited isicad.ru/net to attend a media breakfast in one of the best Moscow restaurants "Pushkin". The invitation announced that Laurent Couillard, VP Sales EMEA at Dassault Systèmes, will tell about V6, in particular:

• V6 PLM Express for SMB

• Communities and life-like experience with V6

• Success stories

• Alliance of Dassault Systèmes and IBM.

Seems I can be proud to get this invitation since it was likely sent to 5 top CAD/PLM-related Russian language media: among them isicad is the only without-paper edition. The problem is that isicad is based in Novosibirsk, 4 hours by plane from Moscow... That's why I asked my close partner from Moscow - Dmitry Movchan, the director and founder of a publishing house DMK-press, specialized in IT, including a lot of CAD/PLM books, in particular a series "CAD: From A to Z" supported by isicad. Thanks to Dmitry, isicad readers can now take a look at the pictures below and get a flavour of the meeting, restaurant, participants, and perhaps V6:).

Note that I am completely responsible for the comments...

At the picture above, Mr.Laurent Couillard and his intepreter are making reconnaissance.

At last, all is ready and Mr.Couillard can start.

What happened then (16 more photoes), can be found here .

Brief isicad-Overview of the Russian CAD/PLM Market: Jan-Apr, 2010

This is a brief overview of the news from Russian CAD/PLM market in January-April just published at
http://www.isicad.net/. A general impression is that the recession is over; at least actors of the Russian market stopped complaining and became active and hopefully productive.

I. Some topics considered traditional, or hot, or isicad-related

Aviation:
· Russian RRJ project became materialized and today everyone is aware or at least has heard from the media that such project was impossible without CAD/PLM
· Launch of the Russian Raptor-like 5G Fighter is one of the most impressive news of the reported months
· In April there was a big Russian conference called “PLM for aeronautical engineering: development, design, manufacturing”, see an announce (in Russian).

My conclusion: in contrast to 2006 or even to 2008, PLM in Russia is no longer exotic or considered skeptically.

Оpen source solutions:
· Increasing interest in Russia to open source solutions
· Russian Parliament Promotes Domestic Linux.

Clouds: As everywhere, people in Russia are very excited about clouds. Google gives you a lot of conferences and seminars on this topic. One example is a conference organized in Moscow by HP “Cloud computations: education, research, software development”. See also my English blog post Clouds in Russia.

COFES Russia Seminar: The seminar together with isicad-2010 Forum will be held on 21 September 2010 in Moscow (http://cofes.com/Russia , http://isicad.ru/2010). Brad Holtz, President of Cyon Research and COFES, will be the keynote speaker. Among other participants well-known experts and bloggers Deelip Menezes and Oleg Shilovitsky. See the press release Cyon Research announces COFES Russia Seminar in partnership with LEDAS and my blog-posts:
· COFES-Russia Seminar and Multi-vendor Forum isicad-2010 in Moscow
· HP and PTC support COFES-Russia Seminar in September 2010.

www.isicad.ru has definitely become a leading Russian CAD/PLM portal. Frankly, if we mean actually CAD/PLM then it’s the only professional portal with its own strict selection of publications. Along with everyday news and press-releases, the portal publishes more and more analytical articles and reports. PLMpedia is a unique collection of articles related to CAD/PLM and presenting information on companies, products and solutions, media, persons, etc. Today, this electronic encyclopedia contains about 1200 very carefully selected articles. Traffic of both web sites is steadily growing, now being around 1000 attendees per day.

II. Some news from CAD/PLM vendors at the Russian market

ARAS: now – in Russia RUPLM company (with unidentified location but a sounding name!) presented to the Russian market a Russian version of ARAS Innovator.

AVEVA: its Russian business thrives AVEVA Group, a well known provider of engineering lifecycle solutions to the plant, power and marine industries, reports that sales of its AVEVA NET Information Management solution have surged in Russia. The company gives some names of big Russian enterprises that have recently become AVEVA customers.

ASCON, the Largest Russian CAD/PLM Company, presented its 2009 results and plans for 2010. In 2009 the company attracted 650 new customers, while the overall number of the companies using ASCON solutions exceeded 5400. Sales reached 544.2 million Rubles (approx. $18 million); in comparison with 2008 the level of revenue decreased by 28%. On the whole, the company closed 2009 with operating profit and positive net profit margin. More details (in English) about ASCON report can be found in my blog.

As for reports in Russian, isicad.ru published detailed illustrated interviews with ASCON top managers: V.Zakharov, director of software development, and D.Osnatch, marketing director.

See also some latest company news: Parametrisation in KOMPAS-3D and Professional 3D CAD Trainings, 3days (24 hour) for FREE only for German users!

Autodesk changed the head of its Russian office. As everywhere globally, the key Autodesk action during the reported period was a release of its 2011 series. Autodesk Russia office kindly and timely provided isicad.ru with all necessary materials so that we could promptly publish overviews for Russian readers: on AutoCAD, Inventor, and Revit. The first paper was reflected in my blog post: AutoCAD 2011: Marching to the Masses with 3D and a Pleasant Make-up.

Among other Autodesk-Russia news note that Ministry of the Russian Federation for Civil Defense, Emergencies and Disaster Relief has chosen Autodesk 3ds Max for building a full data base of 3D Geo models for Russian cartography, see my blog post.

A big Ukrainian gas company “UzhNIIGiproGas” has recently purchased 200 licenses of AutoCAD MEP after it decided to use the Autodesk solution instead of «Bentley PowerDraft».

Dassault Systemes and JSC AVTOVAZ officially confirmed successful implementation of DS CATIA software for designing new car models. AVTOVAZ, best known to the world for its LADA brand, is the leading car manufacturer in Russia. More than a quarter of the cars sold in Russia are manufactured by AVTOVAZ. Every year the company enriches its product line with new car models or modifications as well as with multiple new configurations of the existing ones. Despite the economic crisis, AVTOVAZ intends to continue renewing its product line.

(Note that in February 2008, AvtoVAZ and Renault signed a strategic partnership. The aim was to accelerate the growth of AvtoVAZ, to renew and expand its vehicle range, to develop the Lada brand in order to consolidate its leading position on the Russian market and finally to create value for the Renault group. According to “Auto-rumours” website, Avtovaz and Renault plan to produce five new joint models based on Logan; the web site reports that the management will be done by Nissan).

IRONCAD officially came to Russia. After 13-year existence of its 3D modeling system IronCAD LLC announced that “3D Industry group” would from now on be the first official IRONCAD reseller in Russia. The Russian website of 3D Industry group does not provide any information on the status and location of this reseller.

LEDAS announced RhinoDirect, a new plug-in that parametrically edits history-free 3D geometry in Rhinoceros, implemented (together with Open Design Alliance) parametric drawing tools compatible with the DWG 2010 file format, shipped LGS 3D v3 to take a major step towards full-scale variational direct modeling – technology that creates design intent by combining the simplicity of history-free geometric editing with the power of constraints, and added movie recording and localization to RhinoAssembly, the ultimate tool for assembly design and kinematic simulation of mechanisms downloaded by more than 5,000 Rhinoceros users worldwide.

Initially Nanosoft became sensationally known by its policy formulated as “Native Russian CAD-for-free instead of expensive CAD from abroad” (see for example Ralph Grabowski’s notes on his meeting with Nanosoft). This business direction is still pursued in a somewhat more realistic way but at the same time Nanosoft has step by step extended its policy based on patriotic slogans by becoming a distributor of ArchiCAD (a virtual building solution from Graphisoft) and Altium (CAD-for-radio electronics).

PTC also as Autodesk changed the head of their Russian office and during a couple weeks in April organized PTC Innovation Forum’10 in four big Russian cities: Moscow, St-Petersburg, Ekaterinburg, and Novosibirsk. PTC and its Russian business partners (Solver, Pro/Technologies, PTS, and IRISOFT) presented updates of PTC key products, explained company business approaches, and demonstrated successful applications including those in the space industry. The isicad photo galleries give impressions about forums in Moscow and Novosibirsk. It seems that PTC has a good potential to increase considerably its share on the Russian market: of course, the company has objectively interesting solutions but I believe that one of the factors is that after several years of relative silence today PTC is considered in Russia as somewhat fresh:).

SAP: Gazprom decided to pay SAP 80 000 000 Euros for its software. It’s not very clear to what extent the software is PLM related but Gazprom’s name and the amount of money make the deal worth mentioning.

Siemens PLM Software organized in late March its traditional Moscow Forum “Siemens PLM Connection 2010”. According to its organizers “the event was very successful, however, since it was intended especially for customers, no press-reports should not be expected”.

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HP and PTC support COFES-Russia Seminar in September 2010

Earlier I already presented COFES-Russia Seminar and Multi-vendor Forum isicad-2010 in Moscow . Today I want to announce that Hewlett-Packard and Parametric Technology have decided to become the event’s partners.

HP is mainly interested to present to relevant audience the company’s large format printing solutions that are becoming more and more popular in Russia. Above all, the Russian CAD/PLM market is excited by the prospects of democratization of 3D-printing recently outlined by the entrance of HP into this market domain. For sure, the audience will expect to hear news about all kinds of HP hardware – not excluding cloud computations as they mentioned at the HP web site. HP will also support the event’s exhibition of printed projects developed by students in CAD, architecture, design, and other related fields.

Today PTC demonstrates growth not only in financial indicators but also in general activity including marketing. For instance, during this spring in four Russian largest cities the company will hold its “Innovation Forum” (isicad is invited to become the general information partner of this event). At COFES-Russia, PTC will in particular organize a working group to discuss topical issues of CAD technology.

Earlier Autodesk and Dassault Systemes also became partners of the COFES-Russia and isicad-2010 Forum.
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