Global CAM Market and LEDAS

A few days ago, LEDAS issued a press-release which announced that in the last financial year the company attracted ever more software development from global CAM market. It looks like the interest of the CAM market in LEDAS is not accidental: at least this can be somehow confirmed by a quote of Alexey Ershov, CEO LEDAS:

Unlike the CAD market in which a few dominant vendors earn billions of dollars a year, the CAM arena is spread among dozens of mid-size and hundreds of small companies providing niche solutions. This is due to the variety in capabilities of machines from many hardware vendors, and so this diversity requires development of an assortment of software, each one narrowly specialized. Machining companies put on the market brand new manufacturing devices and are often primarily focused on the hardware. Only later do they see that advanced software is needed to unleash the full potential of their hardware. These companies find it is easier to contract software development services from a company like LEDAS than to write it in-house. LEDAS has proven experience in this field, and so is highly qualified and more cost effective than for hardware firms to set up their own software development divisions, and then hire and train new employees within this area of specialization.

The LEDAS experience in providing services for the CAM domain is illustrated by a list of some relevant programming projects completed successfully by the company (more details and references can be received by request to info@ledas.com):

• Automated nest destruction and nest processing for composites and sheet metal,
• Distributed manufacturing order processing and material lifecycle management for composites and sheet metal,
• Motion simulation, and collision control for mold design,
• Path calculator for laser welding and engraving,
• Cylindrical feature processing for milling and drilling,
• Automated unloading of sheet material parts,
• Automatic migration of new GUIs for complex CAM systems.

As part of his upcoming September tour to meet several European customers of LEDAS, Alexey Ershov will attend a number of CAM-related exhibitions:

-  18, Wednesday, Stuttgart, Composites Europe,

-  19, Thursday, Essen, SCHWEISSEN & SCHNEIDEN,

-  20, Friday, EMO Hannover. 

LEDAS enhances its key business in service after selling its technologies to Bricsys

Here is some part of my motivations for selling LEDAS technologies.  

Here is a link to the official press-release of today.

Here you can see how Erik de Keyser and I signed the Agreement:

Yesterday night, Erik and I were explaining to Deelip Menezes and Ralph Grabowski some details and mutual advantages. This obviously means that soon you will likely read some weighty opinions from the bloggers:

Well, in the long run, it’s me who sold some part of my property. Therefore, you should (or must?) take my opinion into account.  Here it is.

I have sold something which was not profitable for me in direct sales however has been approved as a very valuable and efficient when applied in a proper context, by appropriate brains and hands. Therefore I’ve got adequate money while the buyer got adequate tools for faster development of his business. This means that the deal is fair and mutually beneficial.

Moreover, the Agreement is specified so that I will get a good part of the revenue to be generated by Bricsys by application of the technologies acquired from LEDAS. Therefore I am very interested  in success of this application. To decrease risk of this project, we agreed that a small team of LEDAS developers will be transferred from LEDAS to a Russian department of Bricsys soon to appear. This team will be headed by Dmitry Ushakov who is a real father of the technologies and products in question: he is the best person to efficiently apply, and when necessary, improve/adjust/update/… his technological inventions. Dmitry will quit his current position of LEDAS CEO but remains one of the key members of the LEDAS Board, leading LEDAS expert, consultant, and guru, the editor of www.isicad.ru (and www.isicad.net), and other. Dmitry will definitely continue to efficiently contribute to the business development of LEDAS.

Another important aspect of the deal with Bricsys is that LEDAS continues maintenance of the sold products and becomes their privileged distributor. In particular, no current licensee of LGSs and other components and products will be damaged.

You will inevitably ask me: is it in total something negative that during couple months LEDAS  terminated a 12-year cooperation with Dassault Systemes and sold its unique technologies? My answer is simple: if you consider not emotions, prejudices of LEDAS academic background, and inertia but instead will judge by business and growth criteria, all this is definitely positive. Today LEDAS has higher level of revenue than one year ago with DS and with the technologies. We have now much more transparent, natural, and balanced structure of the business as well as good potential for further business extension in providing highest quality service in software development (SD). Maybe “potential and future” sounds not very convincing but if you need to perform an outsourcing SD project with a unique combination of quality, reliability, and price – address LEDAS right now.  

Well, I have some more formal and informal comments on the LEDAS history, love story with DS, why Bricsys, more events from recently, and plans: Deelip Menezes kindly invited me to describe this in a guest post for his blog. I will do my best to implement this honorable invitation.