Daimler to shift all product development from DS to Siemens PLM

Ken Versprille of CPD Associates has a pretty interesting story about a significant shift at a car maker:

The Board of Directors-level decision at Daimler AG to shift all their product development to the Siemens PLM Software tool stack has dramatically shattered the complacent mindset that had been growing in automotive product lifecycle management (PLM) circles these past few years. The belief that Dassault Systèmes had captured and would retain a lion's share of European automotive OEMs was held by many executive insiders and industry observers alike.

 He lists recent decisions by auto manufacturers upon re-evaluating their PLM systems:

• Nissan - stayed with Siemens PLM Systems
• GM - stayed with Siemens
• Chrysler - switched from Dassault to Siemens
• Ford - switched to Dassault
• Daimler - switched from Dassault to Siemens

 Mr Versprille wonders if Daimler's switch away from Dassault will become the norm for most other car makers. This, coming on top of the condemnation by Autodesk ceo Carl Bass, who last week described his primary competitor's growth "by obfuscating":

 [Dassault] are trying to grow by obfuscating financial results. They are not really growing, and they are kind of losing in the market.

 

Comments

[Maciej Stanislawski]

When someone is a leader on a market he already has overcome, it is natural, that the moment must come when he started to lose. Truerly for many people DS was (and still is) a leader in PLM solutions dedicated for automotive. Nowadays we can see, that some companies decided to change their main CAD/CAM/CAE/PDM/PLM vendor.

Anyway it's a real success for Siemens PLM Software: another step to change the way engineers and decision makers are thinking about NX and its capabilities in modeling for this (automotive) sector. And this is not because of Red Bull Racing only ;)

We can see couple of companies already using NX etc. instead of CATIA.

The questions are:
- What is the main reason in a background of that last change, especially when we can read, that on September the 20th no one even thought about something like this could happen (that day Daimler renewed his contract with DS for next 5 years)? Is it just because of Teamcenter/Smaragd? Maybe the reason is... ST3?
- If Mr Versprille have right, who is gonna be next?

One last thing: ADSK seems to be little nervous looking at DS DraftSight 2D CAD. Even if it is still in beta version. Maybe that is one of the reasons of above ADSK CEO condemnation...

[Dave Ault]

I think it was a decision based on accumulated problems with the direction of Dassault. You can read of users frustrations for instance with SW and how basic needs are ignored and new tech like Synchronous dismissed as a toy. But in the mean time users want reliable programs where they feel their concerns are being addressed. I don't think from the SW users I talk to that they believe those concerns are being met.

DS sends conflicting comments out about what is important and a lot of it is not what a company that has major capital outlays dependent upon good software wants to hear. These guys are planning years ahead and ambiguity about one of their critical tools and where it will be, what it will be, cloud or not and the rest has to be worrying.

I find it very interesting that this is announced quickly after Bernard capered onstage with a silly IPAD for V6 thing. Or was it IPhone-don't know don't care because both are toys where cad is concerned. Perhaps this highlighted proof of continued diversion of funds and talent by DS into things that are irrelevant to a manufacturing concern was the straw that broke the camels back.

[Girish]

Cannot agree more with Maciej Stanislawski.

Not to mention the funds its diverting towards iam.3ds.com social service. Which I think is a bit too ambitious (its actually a joke). They think they will be able to build a sprawling social network a la twitter, facebook? Who on earth, with a sane mind would sit on their website and "innovate" in 3D? I for one would watch sports, talk to my friends, read a book or just go to sleep. If anything I think they are targeting some 5% or less of the young population. And it would be quite an achievement if they can retain 5% of that 5% population.

Not to mention where exalead is going. Is DS trying to target Google? Huh! They have lost focus on their core business. Clearly so. They are aiming all over the place in all directions. Even Microsoft with its huge stock pile of money is having a hard time trying to break into these markets.

And Delmia is looking worse. Their technology is like frozen in time for over one and half decade now.

Sometimes I wonder; the auto and aero industry spent over tens of billions of dollars in the past decade alone on CAD/CAM/CAE/PLM products. Couldn't they have achieved the same if they had pooled in their resources? At least they could have done so for something like CAD software, which is more or less saturated. They should be able to get a decent 3D CAD system up and running if they can collectively throw in a couple of 100 million dollars. Same with plane vanilla CAM systems too. Since the entry barrier has become really high, innovation in these areas is getting stiffled. For example look at Kineo kam. They are among the real innovatiors in this area. But they are dependent on a CAD/CAM environment to integrate their solution into. And since the cost of a development/customization license for a 3D CAD package like CATIA is sky high, they have to charge a hefty fees for their software as well. Which removes a lot of demand for their solution. The benifits of innovation are not accruing to the innovators in these areas. If the industry can put out a free 3D CAD package and standardize upon it, a lot of innovation can start happening again in these areas. The same way DS put out Draftsight for peanuts while ADSK was making hundreds of millions each year at literally no cost.