Big ALM vision: PTC buys Pure Systems
PTC seems to be on a shopping spree at the moment: After the acquisition of Codebeamer made headlines last year, it is now Pure Systems' turn. PTC has thus added a product for variant management for ALM to its portfolio, and one that scales.
What does this mean for the tool market for the development of complex products? Here is an analysis and a bit of speculation.
PTC: A classic portfolio company
PTC specializes in the development of software solutions for the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) specialized. When PTC began in the 1980s, it was primarily concerned with hardware development, 3D CAD design and Parts list management (Bill of Materials, BOM). With the introduction of more and more software in products, PTC has adapted accordingly. This included, for example, the reorientation towards Internet of Things (IoT) through the acquisition of Thingworkx in 2013.
The aim of portfolio companies is to provide customers with a seamless connection between the tools in the portfolio through integration. Furthermore, new tools are more often added to the portfolio through acquisitions than through in-house developments. Sometimes this works better, sometimes worse. One of the consequences of this approach is that the acquisitions made provide information about the company's objectives.
Pure Systems: Hidden champion in variant management
Germany is responsible for their Hidden champions relatively unknown companies that are market leaders in their sector. Pure Systems falls into this category when it comes to Variant or product line management.
This topic has become increasingly important over the past few years. Many tools for product development offer solutions here. However, solutions are often based on configuration management from software development. This means reuse either in the form of "branching and merging" or multiple referencing of elements. These are pragmatic approaches that work for a few dozen variants, but not for thousands or more.
Pure Systems relies on Feature Modelsthat scale completely differently. Furthermore, the Pure Variants product supports a large number of interrogations. This is relevant for the goals pursued by PTC, as we will see in a moment.
Microsoft wants AI, what does PTC want?
When Microsoft in 2018 gitHub many analysts wondered what the company wanted with an open source platform. We now know the answer: Microsoft needed AI training data to be able to offer corresponding products. In the meantime, this has become the Product "Copilot" become.
The charming thing (for Microsoft) about the gitHub acquisition is the fact that no applications had to be integrated. It was about the data, not about user interfaces or integrations.
In the history of software acquisitions, there are countless examples of how drastically a tool integration can backfire.
Dominance in ALM
PTC speaks in their Press release openly explains why the Group bought Pure Systems: To become the leading company in ALM (Application Lifecycle Management) for safety-critical and regulated industries. Or, as PTC naturally has to portray it, to cement its dominance. PTC emphasizes that Codebeamer and Pure Variants complement each other.
The acquisition underscores PTC's leadership in ALM for the automotive, medical, aerospace and other safety-critical and regulated industries.
PTC press release
ALM traditionally refers to software. PTC is explicitly breaking with this definition by explicitly including complex products with physical components. In doing so, they are following the trend of "software-defined products". This is the trend of defining and configuring products primarily via the software. We see this trend in vehicle technology, driven by Tesla. The products (vehicles) differ little or not at all in terms of hardware; features are activated via software. This idea is being developed as an open project by Eclipse Software Defined Vehicle (SDV) tracked.
Digital transformation consistently thought through to the end
But on the PTC website is not (directly) about ALM, but about digital transformation in the company. PTC sees a total of six building blocks: ALM, augmented reality (AR), CAD, IoT, PLM and service lifecycle management (SLM).
The two acquisitions described here specifically strengthen the ALM building block. To understand what PTC could do next, we can analyze the other building blocks. PTC has long been established in the areas of CAD, IoT and PLM. In SLM, PTC also has a relatively broad portfolio. Only in the area of AR does PTC only have a single product and no hardware. In this respect, a future acquisition of an AR hardware company would be conceivable here.
However, my guess would be that the integration of existing technologies has a higher priority at PTC: after all, PTC can only realize its vision of digital transformation if this huge portfolio of software solutions also interacts properly.
The topic is conspicuously absent Artificial intelligence. In a sense, it is reassuring that PTC does not see the need to follow the hype, but is focusing on a long-term vision. However, I am convinced that AI technologies will be used in many places without PTC talking much about it.
Little MBSE
PTC is also rather cautious on the subject of MBSE. PTC sees MBSE as part of PLM and enables modeling with PTC Windchill Modeler, formerly Artisan Studio (purchased by Atego). Here, too, it is conceivable that Atego will add a fresher product to its portfolio. After all, this is exactly what happened with the Codbeamer acquisition (PTC already had an RE tool in its portfolio).
Conclusion
There is no doubt that PTC has a great vision in which "digital transformation" is not just a hype word, but an idea that the Group is trying to implement consistently for its customers. Only time will tell whether this will succeed, because integration on this scale is damn difficult.
