Is PLM consolidation a good thing?

The last couple of years have seen an ongoing consolidation of the PLM market. The purchase of Agile by Oracle, UGS by Siemens, CoCreate by PTC etc.

What impact has this had on the customer experience?

Well, firstly I don't think it's fair to lump all of these deals together - they are different beasts. Siemens, at first glance, seems to have had the most trouble free integration, or so my inside sources suggest! Oracle are a supremely organised company, so perhaps they will address a few of the inconsistency niggles that frustrated some Agile customers.

Are there any real concerns with this consolidation process? Well, to date, not really. The advantages of being able to implement an end-to-end solution that 'fits together nicely' shouldn't be underestimated. Far too frequently PLM selection has been based on existing ERP or CAD installations - not necessarily on the most appropriate PLM solution. Integration into these larger companies able to offer a complete solution will surely pay dividends.

Perhaps the only question mark is whether the smaller customers will suffer...will these increasingly large PLM vendors have the patience to manage smaller less profitable installations? Or will this create opportunities to the increasing number of vendors catering to the SME market?

Interestingly, in May's Managing Automation magazine, Dassault USA CEO Joel Lemke predicted that the number of tier-one vendors of product lifecycle management software would boil down to three in the next three to four years - Dassault Systemes, Oracle, and SAP - with SAP the most likely aquirer of PTC and Autodesk.

That remains to be seen, but it doesn't seem wholly unrealistic.

Would love to hear from someone who has been at the front-end of these takeovers...