Surely this is some kind of marketing blunder, forcing the West Coast cadre of CAD journalists to be up for a marketing Webinar that begins at 7:00am. But, here we are, gentle reader, fighting to keep our eyes open, sitting in our housecoats, waiting for the 6:55am start signal.
First problem: the reminder email doesn't tell me my password. Clicking password retreival doesn't work. Oh, they've sent me a new email with a new password reminder link. Got it. Copy and .... paste does not work. I have to type it in manually.
And we're in! In with a room full of ghosts...
Looks like it's been delayed until 10:05am -- er, 7:05am. The electronic elevator music has stopped. Could be a good sign that the event is about to begin -- or a bad sign, that the connection is lost.
It's on! Looks pre-recorded. The theme is "Turn it On," with the "10" of Windchill 10 looking like the On symbol.
Clearly, this event is for executives, not CAD journalists. We are being told what "PLM" means, calling it "a single source of truth." Well, there goes the Holy Bible!
We're being told that current PTC ceo Jim Hepplemann invented PLM. I'd like to see a cat fight with Bernard Charles of Dassault, who claims to have invented the term "PLM."
There must be a problem with the broadcast, for Mr Hepplemann is coming across in monochrome.
More PDM/PLM history... We learned that the WindChill name comes from his Minnasota roots, and that it is now a half-billion business, nearly the size of Bentley Systems. "We are deep in the planning processes for future releases of WindChill."
This event has links to the Twitter stream. Let's see what's being chatted about. So far, just 1.5-dozen tweets, most from PTC staff.
Checking the attendee list... 1,109, mostly from PTC and large corporations.
Now we hearing from Brian Sheppard, exec vp of product development. Oh good, we're back to color in the broadcast. We are being told that products are more complex and have pricing pressures. Where have we all heard this before? The interviewer asks, what is the solution? [Koff, koff.] "Do more, Know more, Get more."
Ugh, just got told there will be a separate product tour, information for which will be given at the end of this broadcast. Never mind... I just found the button to getting to the product tour now. It's a combination of videos, plain text, and PDF downloads.
Back to the broadcast. In the last few months, there have been 44 product recalls [in the USA?]. This is being used as an argument for the need for quality tracking system. Now, if WindChill and other PLM systems have been around for more than a decade, shouldn't product recalls no longer happening?
Well, I think I will leave the broadcast now. Bromides of solving customer problems is not my area of interest, and the product tour is too complex to navigate at 7:36am.
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