1600+ pages of almost the whole truth about all of us: The Russian PLMpedia

The Russian Web Encyclopedia PLMpedia.ru was founded by LEDAS during the preparation of the forum isicad-2008 as the online version of the vocabulary section of the monograph "The Encyclopedia of PLM» - the book which gradually became a rarity. To give you an idea about this web site, I will show some screenshots to begin with a front page whose some components randomly change from time to time (click to enlarge all pictures):

Over the past four years, PLMpedia became well ahead of its printed version, now in contains more than 1,600 articles (all in Russian) on engineering software​​ divided into more than thirty subject categories. Very probably, one of the most valuable sections is "Industry Terms and Concepts", a fragment of which is shown in this figure:

Now, a fragment from one of the largest categories "Vendors and their products":

In addition to the descriptions of products, technologies, services, and terminology, most of the articles contain references to the vendor websites. Here is a sample article "3D Geometric Kernel" relating to the "Industry Terms and Concepts" (the section which was substantially enriched thanks to the information kindly provided by CIMdata):

Note that at the end of encyclopedia articles there usually are links to relevant fresh publications at isicad.ru. Such links can also be found in other sections, for example, in the sections that describe companies (here - ASCON):

Obviously one of the largest section is about products (note: placement of banners at isicad.ru automatically implies their putting at  PLMpedia):

"Persons" section is also supported (but worthy of a radical extension). An example is an article about John Walker published at PLMpedia long ago and these days widely circulated in the web due to the 30th anniversary of Autodesk:

We try to carefully maintain and expand the section that represents the Internet and paper media including analytics & consulting, here is a a fragment, I hope, in fact, all are presented:

Today in Russia, and, perhaps, and in the world (could somebody correct me?), there is no analogue of such PLM Encyclopedia which by the way is attended quite actively. All comments, corrections, contributions, recommendations are welcome to info@plmpedia.ru or info@isicad.ru.

Novosibirsk IT Center for 100+ high tech companies inagurated yesterday

Yesterday, the Russian Federal Minister of Tele- and mass communications Igor Shchegolev inaugurated the first part of the IT Center (Tekhnopark) in Novosibirsk Scientific Center:

Here is the opening procedure: the minister says:

 Alexey Ershov, LEDAS CEO, receives a certificate which confirms that LEDAS (one  of 100+ high tech companies) is a resident of the Tekhnopark: 

As soon as the minister left the meeting, people ate a huge cake shaped as the building just opened:

 and could enjoy a kind of break dance show:

As for the offices, they are under intensive bottom-up and 24x7 construction: LEDAS plans to move into the Tekhnopark by this summer

Here you may find some official information, e.g. the construction was initiated in late summer of 2010, so far one billion rubles (~ $30M) was invested (about 2/3 from federal budget and 1/3 - from the regional)...  

Brief English verion of the web-site of the above mentioned ministry /  

Sadistic Developers and User’s Interface

My background, including the first steps in my professional life, is in software developing. Nevertheless, almost from the outset of my studies and carrier path (and the more so when I forever joined the community of naïve users) I always had a tendency to react badly to what I would call sadistic developers’ complexes (or – the show of muscle, or - Machismo playing in the nerds’ heads:)) that seem to infiltrate any user’s interface; and so on a regular basis I dreamed about a perfect product.

Well, the ideal does not and cannot exist. Still, as I gradually replaced one of the early HTC and so cumbrous in every respect lap- and desktop computers with Apples, I feel how my end-user pain subsides: I know they are thinking more about us...

English translation of my Russian post was made by Olga Luckashenko.

One relatively inexpensive way to change your life: both in CAD and in general

A 2011-year record of a number of COFES-participants from CIS can now be overcome. Almost at New Year midnight Brad Holtz has updated a current list of participants  of the April Arizona event, now the list includes:

- Three representatives of ASCON who have already visited Arizona in 2011 – CEO M. Bogdanov, head of innovation department O. Zykov, and ASCON’s key technologist V.Panchenko,

- LEDAS CEO and leading technologist Alexey Ershov, and

- a bright CIS expert in AEC&BIM Alexander Bausk.

For the Russian participants, COFES-2011 was rather fruitful (see "Get back! Personal Impressions from COFES-2011"), note in particular some concrete contracts: ASCON-LEDAS (see "LEDAS Implements Variational Direct Modeling in KOMPAS-3D") and ASCON-Lightworks (see "New KOMPAS-3D V13 from ASCON integrates Lightworks Artisan") to say nothing about a lot of indirect value which for sure will be materialized in future. 

As far as I know, a number of the participants from CIS may still increase, in any case, I recommend such Russian CAD/PLM vendors as Top Systems, NanoSoft and ADEM  to seriously consider their visiting Arizona in April which might be very useful for global development of these companies. Just after his registration  for COFES-2012. A.Bausk modestly said on Twitter "Four hours before the New Year, I have done one life-changing thing: if everything comes out, wait for my tweets from a very important CAD-event".

Russia invests 690 000 000 rubles into building a national 3D solid modeling kernel

Last week, a Russian daily Izvestia published an article which announced the completion of the tender whose topic was “Building of a national 3D solid modeling kernel”. The winner is a well-known MOSCOW STATE TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY "STANKIN", one of the leading technical universities in Russia and likely in Europe. (STANKIN is an abbreviation for machine-tool institute). The main comment for Izvestia was given by Sergey Kuraksin, presented by the daily as the CEO of the engineering center of STANKIN. The CAD market perfectly knows Sergey mainly as the CEO of Top Systems, one of the leading Russian CAD/PLM companies whose offerings include 3D CAD TFlex and a developed PLM set of products. 

Another participant of the tender was TsAGI, The Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute named after N.Zhukovsky. TsAGI is world known by fundamental contributions into the Soviet and Russian aviation and space industry.

Of course the tender was open; all its minor details (see a link below) seem to confirm that although TsAGI is obviously a unique engineering institution, its skills and experience in software engineering look substantially less than those of STANKIN (especially together with Top Systems).  

The investment into the project is 690M RUR (today ~22M USD) for 3 years. Parasolid is indicated “as a functional prototype” for the project.

Izvestia gives a brief characteristics of what the modeling kernel is, mentions the component's key importance for industry, and says that today the world and Russian industry use such imported products as Parasolid and other – produced more than 20 years ago. (Note that ASCON, a leading Russian CAD/PLM provider, has its in-house modeling kernel which is so far used only for the company's products such as well-known KOMPAS 3D). 

The article also quotes some external expert opinions that are generally skeptical. One of them says that building a software is not a key point and reminds that Siemens has a very large team to maintain Parasolid. The same expert is surprised how TsAGI which has a great “experience in plane design could fail in tender with STANKIN”. Another person, a manager from SolidWorks Russia, explains that end-users do not care what modeling kernels are used in applications and added that “his company is not going to replace Parasolid with something else”.

Links:

An article in Izvestia 

All details of the tender 

STANKIN full web site in Russian , Some words about STANKIN in English 1, --- in English 2 

TopSystems , full Web site in Russian  

TsAGI 

T-FLEXCAD 12 and KOMPAS-3D V13 confirm high activity of the Russian MCAD market 

T-FLEX CAD 12 and KOMPAS-3D V13 confirm high activity of the Russian MCAD market

As the editor-in-chief of isicad.ru/net, I've just received a letter (written in English!) from the marketing department of the Russian CAD/PLM company Top Systems. The attachment included an English press-release announcing T-FLEX CAD 12. I believe this 3D CAD, quite popular at the Russian/CIS market, is really globally competitive and hope this publication: "T-FLEX CAD 12 Released" helps its promotion:

English press-releases are already quite usual for ASCON (see for example my recent overview) but it's nevertheless pleasant to see that in today's issue of tenlinks ASCON release of KOMPAS-3D V13 shares the first line with DS CATIA Sketcher:  

By the way, may be the isicad.net Top-10 will be of some interest for you:

Direct Modeling and other Top 10 topics of CAD/PLM at isicad.net

isicad.net is a modest English version of the most popular Russian CAD/PLM web resource isicad.ru published by LedasGroup. In contrast to the Russian version which aims to cover all key news and trends of the world and Russian markets of engineering software, isicad.net briefly reflects what happens at the Russian and CIS markets and from time to time publishes English translations of some original Russian articles related to the CAD/PLM domain.

Below you can see a list of Top 10 most visited articles. 

1. How to Express Design Intent in Rhino 3D :11.2009 

2. “The Future of MCAD” Roundtable Organized by isicad and upFront.eZine :09.2009         
3.The prodigal son of Autodesk :05.2009 
4. New Armor for Rhino :07.2011 
5. A brief interview with Steffen Buchwald (Siemens PLM Software) :06.2009 
6. Synchronous Technology: The Third Attempt :10.2010 
7.CIMdata evaluates PLM-market in 2010 and gives optimistic forecasts :04.2011 
8.Variational Direct Modeling: How to Keep Design Intent in History-Free CAD :10.2008 
9.The Future of MCAD: Round Table in Moscow :07.2009 
10. Bricscad Enters 3D Solid Modeling for Mechanical Design Market :01.2011  

Note that some of listed items are comparatively new and still have chances to move to the higher positions. By the way, an article “Direct Modeling -Who and Why Needs It? A Review of Competitive Technologies — by Dmitry Ushakov” published just couple days ago, judging by Google Analytics, can move to the very top of the list.