PTC Provides a Peek into Its Development Labs

PTC, not a company known for opening its R&D kimono, gave analysts and journalists a directional overview of what's percolating in its development labs as it outlined key strategies for its product roadmap and provided some specifics on forthcoming products.

Ease-of-use functionality and accessibility, particularly as it relates to user interface and Web 2.0 functionality, were a common theme across most of the forthcoming product enhancements, all part of PTC's continued efforts to promote use of 3-D CAD and PLM tools beyond the core engineering organization. The company also announced the availability of Windchill ProductPoint, a platform for sharing product development-related data based on Microsoft's SharePoint platform, and PTC's executive team played up the role of SharePoint's Web 2.0 capabilities, including wikis, blogs and presence detection, as key to ushering in new ways of engineering collaboration.

"Social product development is an area that has a lot of energy right now," says Jim Heppelmann, PTC's executive vice president and chief product officer. "It will make big changes in the way people do product development."

PTC is hoping the introduction of ProductPoint has that kind of impact, particularly on the SMB market. Windchill ProductPoint extends the SharePoint platform for sharing multi-CAD product development data, giving smaller companies a less expensive and easy-to-deploy solution for managing CAD files compared to PTC's enterprise Windchill PDMLink solution. Like the enterprise PDMLink, ProductPoint can be used to manage Pro/Engineer and other CAD data, and the tool enables visual product interaction via 3-D thumbnails, lightweight viewing and Web-based markup tools. Unlike PDMLink, however, ProductPoint does not facilitate multi-stage approvals or sophisticated change management and configuration management functions.

PTC believes ProductPoint will have a significant impact for smaller companies that have been locked out of the PLM world as well as for departments within larger companies that have bought into the SharePoint architecture and are in need of a basic product data sharing and management tool. "There's really a gap in how (product development) teams work together especially now that they're global and not co-located," says Lee Garf, PTC's vice president of product management. "While first generation collaboration tools focused more on file sharing and Web conferencing, this next generation is taking it a step further."

Analysts say PTC's early bet on the SharePoint architecture could eventually have a deeper impact on the enterprise Windchill offering. "PTC believes SharePoint has the possibility to mature into a fully capable Web environment that can rival the current Windchill architecture," says Jim Brown, president of Tech-Clarity Inc. "PTC is placing bets on both approaches so they have the flexibility to take advantage of SharePoint more fully when (and if) it is mature enough. In the meantime, they gain some very nice social media capabilities for Windchill and ProductPoint."

Beyond ProductPoint, PTC provided a sneak peek into its product development labs. As outlined by Brian Shephard, division vice president for PTC PDM, here are some highlights of what's to come:

--An overhaul to MathCad, due out in late 2009/early 2010, which emphasizes enterprise functionality along with new ease-of-use capabilities like a task-based, document-centric user interface and a revised equation editor that simplifies how equations are input.

--Pro/Engineer Wildfire 5.0, due in June, which will feature real-time regeneration functionality for easier interaction with complicated models along with improved regeneration failure handling so the tool is more forgiving of model errors. UI enhancements include a ribbon-based interface focused on tasks, new drawing trees and improved printing features. A new rib tool will automate work associated with creating plastic parts, while new welding features will enable engineers to model welds as a feature in an assembly. New connectivity options include new 3-D import wizards for easier interoperability along with features that make the transition from 2D to 3D easier.

--New ProductPoint releases, including a mid-2009 version that is integrated with Wildfire 5.0 and Manikin and offers scalability functionality, including FIRST deployment for Web farm configurations and MOSS enhancements. In early 2010, a ProductPoint 2.0 release will deliver extended social product development, multiCAD data management features along with an advanced release management module.

--Windchill 10.0, on tap for 2010, featuring a clean Web 2.0 look, expanded MCAD/ECAD software integrations, support for top-down design methodology, expanded features for managing design variants and additional digital mockup visualization capabilities. Enhancements to the platform's multi-level compare reports and communications capabilities are designed to improve change management and configuration management processes.

--Windchill RequirementsLink, a new set of functionality for Windchill 9.1, due mid-year, designed to help engineers collect and manage user requirements as part of the PLM environment.

PTC officials also laid the groundwork for future acquisitions, particularly smaller deals that could plug in holes in the product portfolio or give the company access to new technology, particularly in the area of ECAD-to-MCAD integration and embedded software capabilities. Officials did downplay any potential sale of PTC, which has been rumored for months, given the current economic climate and its impact on a potential selling price.