PTC
extended its support for Microsoft's
SharePoint 2010 with
new additions to the Windchill PLM suite that tap the collaboration platform to
give all stakeholders - design engineers, program managers and top executives -
access to the product development process within a familiar environment.
The new additions, part of PTC's on-going
strategy to extend its offerings beyond the core engineering ranks, include
Windchill PPMLink, a new program portfolio management solution; Windchill
SocialLink, a social computing component; Windchill Web Parts for SharePoint,
which consolidates data from Windchill and other systems for easier information
access; and Windchill
ProductPoint, an
enhanced version of the CAD data management tool aimed at small to mid-sized
businesses. The additions are slated for release later this year.
WindChill PPMLink, which extends Microsoft's
Enterprise Project Management capabilities with configurable stage and gate
processes, also features scorecards that aggregate traditional project
management measurements with PLM-derived product attributes.
The new Windchill
SocialLink follows in the footsteps of Windchill ProductPoint 1.1 and
Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 5.0, which introduced social computing capabilities to
the PTC user base. This new dedicated solution leverages SharePoint 2010 to
deliver social computing capabilities combined with rich knowledge of product
data, along with a Web 2.0 user experience that includes content tagging,
filtering and activity feeds, the latter a feature that automatically
disseminates relevant product knowledge to self-forming groups or "communities
of practices" that have shared interests. The module will also support personal
profiles, which are continuously updated based on PLM system usage to ensure
product data is delivered in a relevant way.
The other two additions
to the Windchill family are Windchill Web Parts for SharePoint, which provides
a single, consolidated view of product information by letting SharePoint users
view, search and edit Windchill data along with content from other core
enterprise systems like ERP. The new addition of Windchill ProductPoint
delivers CAD vaulting, sharing, visualization, mark-up and data reuse for SMBs
typically dealing with a heterogeneous CAD environment. New data loading tools
in the latest release will facilitate the migration of content housed in older
Pro/INTRALINK 3.X systems.
In related news, PTC
announced the latest version of its Mathcad engineering calculation software.
Mathcad 15.0 includes more than 25 new functions to aid in conducting Design of
Experiments (DoE), more robust reference libraries and integration with
third-party tools, including the latest version of Microsoft Excel, as well as
existing engineering platforms like PTC Pro/Engineer and Windchill.
