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

Former CAPP Team of ASCON Will Support Autodesk Inventor and Vault

One month ago in "Team of CAPP VERTICAL Left ASCON to Implement HORIZONTAL" I wrote about a small sensation at the Russian CAD/PLM market: a team of ASCON's CAPP solution known as VERTICAL left ASCON and founded a new company called SDI Solution.

That post in particular said: "The founders of SDI Solution headed by Andrey Andrichenko, Ph.D., are going to intensively build a new CAPP system. They declared that its principles are reflected by the new company name: SDI means semantic data integration. Andrey says that all CADs are basically expert systems therefore a new trend is to change object approach by a semantic paradigm: this mainstream opens new capabilities for knowledge representation and for improvement of decision making in the CAD domain... SDI Solution announced that they have already negotiated (or will have such contacts) on a partnership with Autodesk, DS, and other global leaders".

And now, last week, Autodesk CIS distributed an official press-release "Autodesk and SDI Solution Signed Agreement On the ADN Partnership". It says that because of the strategic partnership in the framework of Autodesk Development Network, a Russian company SDI Solution will be able to early start integration of its solutions with Inventor и Vault and release  SDI solutions into the market simultaneously with releases of new versions of the Autodesk products.

There are comments saying that ADN membership does not assume any mutual responsibility of partners and does not invest anything to its members but, on the contrary, requires paying some membership fee. However Autodesk press-release is a significant advertizing signal which is obviously important for SDI Solution. And perhaps it also means something for Autodesk.

Autodesk press-release in Russian and Google-translated.

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

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...

A Hot Discussion around BIM at isicad.ru

This discussion was initiated by the article Revolutions in Design published in late September. Alexander Yampolsky, a practical and experienced engineer from Tula, a city close to Moscow, argued that collaborative work at integrated 3D-model is something unpractical for real-life AEC or at least premature. By today, the article got 40+ comments - most of them substantial and profound. People explained that BIM is today already broadly applied, that one should not consider BIM as artificial intelligence, compared BIM with PLM, gave some examples of successful approaches and technologies from MCAD that is hardly a more simple domain than AEC.

The discussion promptly continued by a series of bright and very well illustrated articles by Vladimir Talapov, a professor of Novosibirsk AEC University who is known as a strong supporter and practical promoter of BIM:

What affects deployment of BIM in Russia

Deployment of BIM: Conservatism and Common Sense

BIM or not BIM: that is the question?

BIM is actually Based on Whale (related to Frank Gehry’s sculpture of whale constructed in 1992 in Barcelona).

These articles provoked a not less stream of comments (about 50) than that of the article of A.Yampolsky – mostly supporting BIM but not always and not completely. One of the discussion lines was whether and why people today often identify BIM with Revit and Autodesk.

The Talapov’s series was followed by an article of Alexander Bausk from Ukraine entitled A less Optimistic Viewpoint at BIM in which a somewhat balanced opinion is presented.

At last (but not finally) isicad.ru published an article of Vladimir Malukh How MCAD is Used in AEC. Vladimir gives illustrated examples of how CATIA, SolidWorks, Pro/Engineer, Inventor, and KOMPAS-3D are fruitfully used in some serious industrial AEC projects. I believe that far beyond such examples AEC could adopt a lot from both design project decomposition and collaborative integration that by today are well developed and became common in MCAD. I would not be surprised to know about a profound isomorphism between design phases in MCAD and similar design actions directly or indirectly are or should be applied in AEC. To say nothing about a more or less recognized correspondence between BIM and PLM.

Note also that most of the people that contributed into the BIM discussion are professionals working in the domain for a long time. Also, it is worth noting that according to Google Analytics most of the recent isicad articles on BIM attracted a record number of the web site visitors.

Those who can read Russian or trust automatic translations can take a look at the above mentioned links. On the other hand, Alexander Bausk who, above all, contributed the AEC-BIM working group at COFES-Russia by his synchronous translation, plans to write for isicad.net a summary of our BIM discussion in English.

The picture above was originally drawn by children from a Russian orphanage, then was reconstructed in a Revit model, 3D-printed in Moscow by Consistent Software Distribution, and at last presented to the children who made the picture. NB: besides Revit, it obviously could be modelled in many other systems!:).