Siemens PLM acquired CD-adapco and LMS over the last few years, but that does not mean the software from those companies becomes an instant company standard.
Dr Horst J Kayser, Siemens chief strategy officer, is onstage at the Siemens PLM analyst event and we are finding out how big and how great Siemens is.
Siemens, a German conglomerate, best known to engineering software users for NX, Teamcenter and Solid Edge, provided to us by their PLM division, used to be known for executives in black suits. The behemoth that makes all things from windmills to trains to medical devices also has, almost as a sidelight, a $3.1billion operation as a software company. That by itself would make it the 12 biggest software company in the world.
This puts just the PLM division of Siemens up there with those for whom engineering software is a primary occupation, such as Dassault and PTC. Siemens PLM may have jumped a few slots the last few years with 2 big software acquisitions, CD-adapco and LMS. Both were acquired from between a half and $ 1 billion.
Siemens PLM makes a business out of selling its software applications to everyone, in and out of its doors. One would think selling its software to its own divisions would be reason enough for existence. Why not make it mandatory for all Siemens employees to use NX, for example, for everything that they design?
Nice if this were so but this does not happen. For one thing, companies acquired by Siemens have had other software application embedded for so long that ripping them out and installing NX would be disruptive, resisted and unpopular. Too bad. Siemens PLM would get a lot of mileage out of “eating their own dog food,” as software companies who do the opposite are fond of saying. Wouldn’t it be better than having to explain why a Siemens division uses PTC, for example.
As it turns out, becoming part of the Siemens family is insufficient for a software company to be accepted as a company standard. In other words, even acquired software applications have to compete with entrenched applications in a Siemens division.
This seemingly dysfunctional approach is downplayed by one recent acquisition.
Getting acquired helps getting our foot in the door, says one executive of company recently acquired. But that’s all.
Is Siemens ignoring a sure-fire market, by not mandating that all its division use its software?
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