PTC’s Windchill 10.0 – will 100 million in R&D take PLM to the next level?

Bildtext: Brian Shepherd

One thing should be made crystal clear in regards to PTC – few companies in the PLM-arena have the same level of courage when it comes to making the really dramatic and bold moves to create a world class product portfolio. This has certainly been a common theme running through the company’s entire history – from Sam Geisberg’s genius creation – parametric modeling, through Dick Harrison’s bold move of rewriting the kernel technology and releasing Windchill, to new CEO Jim Heppelmann’s dumping of the ProEngineer brand and releasing the Creo CAD revolution. The initiatives tend to be dramatic, but so far it has been a successful strategy – because once the dust settles, the remaining product usually turns out to be grand and market leading. How the new version of Windchill will fare remains to be seen. Notable, however, is that in terms of monetary investment, it certainly stands out: For the last two years the R&D team, under the leadership of vice president Brian Shepherd, has been working hard and the price tag for the project ending up at a cool 100 million dollars.