The World Wide Work Space

Business Week – June 2005

UGS software lets thousand of people cooperate on a single project.

Products:
This company main product is Product life-cycle management (PLM) where it helps company to live in a virtual workplace. It is a 3D workplace with folders and etc.

This is like a combination of VSS, content management, single logon, intranet hybrid kind of software.

To make things faster, they borrowed USD 228 million to purchase Tecnomatix Technologies Ltd, which makes software to let companies design and analyze their manufacturing.

Their obvious target customer is those multi-geography manufacturing firm.

Applications:
• Design:
General Motors uses UGS software for designing cars, including all current Cadillacs. More than 20K GM employees working in 19 engineering centers on six continents use the tools to do everything from mocking up drawings of cars to creating finished designs of power trains.
• Manufacturing:
Procter & Gamble’s $6 billion baby-care division used UGS tools for its diaper manufacturing. The system linked makers in Europe, Asia, and Latin America with U.S designers, letting P&G create a master design for its plants.
• Maintenance:
The Royal Australian Navy threw out its paper-based system and replace it with a UGS program for the operation and repair of its vessels. The system connects suppliers, repairmen, and onshore crews so that they can work together to keep ships in tip-top shape.

Competition:
UGS Software is the reign market leader, with Germany’s SAP in the second spot and France’s Dassault in the third spot.

SAP and Oracle, two industry leader in corporate total solutions are also coming up with similar modules on top of their existing engines.

This means that sooner or later, we are expecting SAP to come up with modules like manufacturing simulation, where real-time data of manufacturing equipments are transferred into the systems and to be shared by fellow employees.

In order words, we are expecting a lot of graphics animation appearing on the enterprise software platform.

Future:
Java programmers specialize in the 3D or graphic related API are going to be in demand when such time arrives. This could be a real thing, since the web platform has proven to give enterprise computing complete with new set business revenue, where you once had backend system running payroll, adminstration and accounting processes. Now you would like to be service-oriented by exposing certain information to the clients via system such as CRM and SCM using the web platform. In the future, you would like your people to be able to see how the machine functions on real time basis.

Many companies are still not yet even started on the first step, even though the era of I.T has virtually passed on (since 2000). But it is surprising that demand is still there for such implementations. Recently I have been contacted by an old friend who is in charge of a corporate management company and he is looking to implement their first ever enterprise software with some exposure to the web. He told me that they have taken the first initiative, which is purchasing a NEC server box with IBM websphere software came along. This company has been around for many years, and during those time, they had been relying on MS Word and Excel as their computing platform. Now that they have finally declared to be stable and financially grounded, they are looking for work-flow improvements and etc. They are two fresh I.T executives in the company, doing some specialized-isolated software. Now they are looking for a team lead to spearhead the enterprise software development but not willing to disclose the budget. Probably they still haven't got one!

-------------evalet----------------------------
1. traffic jam solutions?
2. how real is virtual office ?
3. how to deal with rising fuel cost?
4. to what extend virtual workplace can offer?
5. what is the future of SAP?
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