Aras Partners With Autodesk To Offer PLM

Today Aras, the provider of enterprise open source PLM software solutions, announced its entry into the Autodesk partner program. According to the press release:

The partnership will allow Aras to seamlessly connect the Aras Innovator suite with Autodesk Inventor, AutoCAD, Vault and Publisher enabling customers to achieve faster time to market, better product quality and greater profitability.

In December 2010 I had the chance to sit down with Autodesk’s CEO Carl Bass and ask him some questions about PLM:

Deelip: What exactly is your problem with PLM?

Carl: (Laughs) I don’t have a problem with PLM. I still stand by the comments I made around five years ago wherein I said that PLM was a technology in search of a problem. I think that’s changed. I think people have had a more pragmatic approach to PLM. You can now find working implementations of PLM systems. I think one of the problems with PLM when used in the press is that it is not a very clear term. People mean different things.

Its become increasingly clear from recent CAD system switches of large OEM’s that PLM largely dictates which CAD system is used in a company. I believe Autodesk understands this and has realized that it cannot afford to ignore PLM anymore, irrespective of what it thinks about the three letter acronym. PLM that has been understood and accepted by the industry and there is really no point fighting it anymore.