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Issue #503 : : January 30, 2007 |
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Write the editor! Through Paypal, consider donating $25 in support of upFront.eZine. Access daily CAD commentary at our Weblog, WorldCAD Access. |
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The three private equity firms who took UGS private (from EDS, two years ago) have now profited handsomely by selling the third-largest CAD company to Siemens of Germany. (I had an uncle who was a high-power salesman for Siemens. Until his heart attack.) Even though UGS had been hinting it would go public this year, in actual fact it was in talks for the last six months with two industrial giants, one unnamed, the other Siemens. "We had a checklist every quarter that had internal factors and external factors [for going public]," UGS CEO Tony Affuso told the Dallas Morning News. "When we felt we had all 20 bright green, we were ready to go; but we never got there." Mr Affuso says it was Siemens who approached UGS last year. My guess is that it was UGS's mounting debt that made the IPO [initial public offering] difficult. Assuming the sale is approved by American and European regulators, Siemens plans to pay US$3.5 billion, of which $1.4 billion goes to pay off UGS's debt. When the purchase is completed by June:
The group president of A&D, Helmut Gierse, says that mechanical design and control design will converge in the next the years. http://www.siemens.com/automation It appears the scheme is as follows:
Paraphrased Q&A During last week's conference, call, an analyst asked Siemens management, "What's the benefit to the customer?" The paraphrased response from Mr Gierse: "It will be scalable; in today's market, it is not scalable. Today, you have a disruption between the mechanical design [with CAD] and the production [factory floor]. All these broken interfaces will go away. It has always been the A&S philosophy that the customer gets the complete package from Siemens, if he wants it. Or he can get it from system integrators."
Another analyst asked about competitors: "Who are the ones and threes?" Response: "One is Dassault, and three is PTC [Siemens sees UGS as #2]." Mr Gierse says he plans to go after the process industries next, such as pharmaceutical, "because they have the same problems. In the future, we will see the complete simulation of the pharmaceutical factory." He likes that GM and Ford is doing poorly, because that puts pressure on them to become more efficient by buying more software and hardware from Siemens/UGS.
At WorldCAD Access, John wonders, "I'm interested to see how large corporate users of UG (GE, for example) that compete with Siemens will react to this information." Siemens isn't worrying about this yet: "A&D will thus become the first supplier for the manufacturing industries to provide an end-to-end software and hardware portfolio encompassing the complete lifecycle of products and production facilities," enthuses the company. ('Hardware portfolio' is a reference to the manufacturing products, electrical installations, machine tools, and automobile factory automation.) For those of us who cover UGS, the new owners will prove frustrating. What will happen is that the amount of information about UGS will slow to a trickle as the once-third-largest CAD company disappears into the Siemens behemoth. UGS again becomes a slim sliver of the overall revenue picture, as it was with EDS. - - - The A&D Group has an online mall here: Information about bribery and embezzlement allegations and the
EC's largest-ever price-fixing fine against Siemens is here: The Motley Fool is unimpressed: Article by Dallas Morning News is here:
Vista: Do Not Seek the Treasure In the movie, "Oh Brother Where Art Thou?," Pete warns his two companions to not seek the treasure. Instead of the location hiding $1.1 million, it's hosting a renegade sheriff determined to hang all three. Now that Microsoft's MPAA-approved Vista operating system is available, and SolidWorks has the first CAD package available for it, it's time to ask the question: should your organization upgrade to Vista? No. According to those who have been working with Vista, you should consider thee strategies:
In short, Microsoft has specified that Vista reduce the functionality of our personal computers and our legal rights. Think Zune*.
References Windows Vista Review by Paul Thorrot Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection by Peter Gutmann CNET notes that if you pay US$400 for Vista Ultimate, your computer
might end up running the equivalent of Home Basic ($199) if the
installer decides your computer doesn't have the hardware needed.
Gen Kanai describes a real-world Windows monoculture environment,
and its inherent dangers: The 5 sins of Vista by IntelliAdmin: - - - (*) Credit: www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37091 A summary of CAD industry news you may not have read elsewhere, or that I found interesting: - - - VRcontext is beta testing software-only rendering of massive models using multi-core CPUs. The new ProcessLife software features realtime ray tracingon AMD's HyperTransport eight-core CPUs on nVidia motherboards. [I had been wondering what software could possible take advantage of eight CPUs, and now I know.] www.vrcontext.com Enact Technology's speak4 voice recognition software (US$149.95 - $199.95) works with AutoCAD, Inventor, SolidWorks, SketchUp, Photoshop, and InDesign. Requires a USB headset. www.speak4CAD.com China-based ZwCAD Software offers its IntelliCAD-based ZwCAD 2006i free for 30 days from www.zwcad.org . Price is US$450 plus US$160 annually for updates, maintenance, and tech support. In related news, IntelliCAD-based CADopia 6 SP3 is now shipping with true color and color book support, PDF export of multiple layouts, 3D DWF export, , COM API enhancements, and more. www.cadopia.com/about_us/news/cadopia6sp3_released.asp [Get the Pro edition, and you get my "CADopia Customization Guide" and "Inside CADopia 6" ebooks on the CD.] Cimmetry Systems releases AutoVue for SharePoint Server 2007. Or, more accurately, "AutoVue 19.1c1 Client-Server, Web Edition for SharePoint Server 2007, Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0 and Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007." www.cimmetry.com/sharepoint SYCODE launches three more file export plug-ins for AutoCAD: STL Export, OBJ Export, and Points Export (text file). www.sycode.com/products/index.htm - - - These news items were posted during the last month at the WorldCAD Access blog < worldcadaccess.typepad.com>:
Seminars & Conferences CIMdata 2007 PLM Vendor Forum is in Detroit MI USA on March 29; in Stuttgart, Germany on April 19; and in Tokyo, Japan on April 25. www.CIMdata.com ARCHIBUS 2007 International Users’ Conference is April 22-25 Marco Island Marriott Resort FL USA. www.archibus.com/usersconf 2007 Green Roofs Conference is Apr 29-May 1 in Minneapolis MN USA. www.greenroofs.org
People/Companies on the Move Bentley Systems acquires Germany's KIWI Software and its ProSteel 3D software. Bentley Systems promotes Bhupinder Singh to senior vice president of Bentley Software. Autodesk dealer Hagerman & Company acquires Jim Prewett's Spectrum Technologies, as of Wednesday. PTC dealer Enser Corporation merges with Redbolt Technologies, another PTC dealer. ICEM open a west coast office in Orange County CA USA, and appoints Kim Kirley as Western Regional Sales Manager. AfterCAD Software appoints Rob Cruickshank to its board of advisors. Mr. Cruickshank is the president of the British Columbia Technology Industries Association. IronCAD sponsors research by Georgia Institute of Technology into visibility-based visualization of highly complex CAD models. Advantage Business Media promotes Robert Langford to inside sales manager of the manufacturing group of magazines: Production Technology News, IMPO, Product Design & Development, and Manufacturing.net. The Radan Sheet Metal Software division of Planit Solutions moves to new offices in Forest Lake MN USA. Autodesk dealer K-TEK Solutions names Cathy Wagenaar president and chief operating officer. Market News AVEVA Group announces revenues of £45.9 million [US$90 million] during the six months ending September 30, up 58% over same period in 2005. The company is now listed on the FTSE250.
Brand New CAD Books/eBooks "SolidWorks 2007 Tutorial" by D & M Planchard "AutoCAD 2008 Fundamentals" by Elise Moss "Engineering Design with SolidWorks 2007" by D &
M Planchard "Engineering Graphics Theory & Problems" by Timothy
Sexton "Tailoring AutoCAD Rendering" by Ralph Grabowski
WorthWhile Web money.cnn.com/2007/01/19/technology/fastforward_parallels.fortune/
www.robgalbraith.com/bins/index.asp
Letters to the Editor Re: PTC's Media Access Day "I'd like to provide some input on the use of the term 'outsourcing.'
It has been used for many years by North American manufacturers
to describe a supplier relationship, both domestically and internationally.
Outsourcing does not necessarily mean that 'your company is using
other's resources overseas,' as indicated in this week's issue.
American companies outsource to many other American companies." - - - "You have given me years of satisfaction reading your ezine."
Spin Doctor of the Moment "It is recommended that a graphics manufacturer go beyond
the strict letter of the specification and provide additional content-protection
features, because this demonstrates their strong intent to protect
premium content." Spin Doctor of the Moment "A key principle to our advertising creative is authenticity,
in that the Zune brand is about celebrating great artists and the
real people that enjoy it."
Notable Quotable "There is way too much obsession with search, as if it were
the end of the world. Google equals money equals search equals search
advertising; it all gets combined as if this is the last great business
model."
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