Siemens PLM: We're Just One Big Happy Family

by Roopinder Tara, Tenlinks.com

In the race to be everything to everyone, Siemens PLM may be winning. The company known best for NX and Teamcenter is riding high here at the Siemens PLM 2012 Analyst Conference on the shoulders of Siemens AG, the German juggernaut that seems to make just about everything. Maybe not cars or airplanes, but so much of what goes inside them.

I'm listening to a Siemens presentation about its automotive products that include its embedded systems -- those black boxes that your neighborhood mechanic hates but you love because, with their millions of lines of code, your modern marvel of a car beeps as it nears the curb, avoids collisions, parks itself and will soon enough let you read the morning paper while it takes you to work. By itself.

While other CAD vendors (Dassault, PTC in particular) may claim to provide all the software tools an engineer, designer, or machinist may need, Siemens PLM may be alone in providing so many industries with both software and hardware. 

In fact, in all the presentations I am hearing at this annual anlayst meeting, hardly any distinction is being made between Siemems PLM and other divisions of Siemens. Siemen PLM's CEO Chuck Grindstaff is mentioning the names of many other divisions, like he has been issued a mandate to play nicely with the other kids. 

This gives Siemens PLM a big competitive advantage. Not only can the other divisions be NX and Teamcenter users with their tens of thousands of engineers (I would hope they already are), but more importantly, they can go to many potential customers with a confident swagger. In so many industries, they already walk the walk.

We all know energy is a hot topic. It's also a growing industry. The Siemens side of the sales call may go like this: "Yeah, we do that. Siemens Energy. It's a big division. What do you want, turbines? Gas or steam? Oh, you want renewable energy? Who doesn't these days? We got hydropower... wind. Actually, a whole line of wind turbines. Yes, of course, they are designed with NX." 

Or, as CEO Grindstaff put it, "We eat our own cooking." Sure is nice for them to be part of such a big family -- a family in which, now more than ever, the members are looking out for each other.

[Reprinted with permission of CAD Insider.] 

Comments

[Kevin De Smet]

I really see a bright future for Siemens PLM, I was really considering investing some stock into them but unfortunately you can only buy Siemens stock. Which envelopes everything Siemens does, that's much less predictable for me to know how their future will go.

[Ralph Grabowski]

The position of Siemens PLM Software within Siemens AG has its pro and its con:

Pro -- Siemens PLM gets practical experience from the other Siemens AG divisions employing the software in real-world designs, like no other CAD vendor

Con -- Siemens PLM focus might go away from what non-Siemens customers need (less likely)