25 Years of Innovation with Aras

At Aras, we like to say that we are here to change the way people work together to make things. Sounds simple. But when you stop to think about it, you have to take a beat and think about all those things…big, small, what our kids play with, how we travel across the country, and how we make things around the world. Over the past 25 years, we have built a community of like-minded customers, partners, employees, and friends. Like most companies that reach a milestone like this one, we can say that it’s been fun, we worked hard, and we continue to strive to achieve our company’s and customers’ goals to create many more milestones in our future.

One popular piece of Aras lore is how the company got its name. Do you have a guess? It is named after our founder’s daughter, Sara. Only spelled backwards. It’s always fun to learn how companies get their names. Remember when it seemed odd to call a company Apple?

So now you know how we got our company name – but what about our product name? According to founder Peter Schroer, “Our product had lots of really stupid preliminary names. Innovator was a happy accident following the acquisition of Cimtelligence from IDFM. Their product was called Process Innovator.”

The first milestones for Aras came quickly. The company was founded in January 2000, Aras Innovator was introduced in 2001, and by 2002 it was the first fully functional web-native product lifecycle management (PLM) platform available.

Over the last 25 years, there has been a steady increase in Aras Innovator based solutions, with new applications added in 2004, 2005, and 2007, including web services, CAD integration, and requirements management.

Over the following years, Aras expanded its offerings to include visual collaboration tools, manufacturing process planning, low-code enhancements, 3D visualization, with Aras Innovator available through Microsoft Azure Marketplace. 2021 saw the release of Aras Innovator SaaS, the industry’s first and only enterprise class PLM solution with full capability parity to on prem solutions.

As Aras grew, 2014-2016 began its global expansion to Japan, Germany, and France. Over the last quarter century, we have worked with some of the

largest and well-known organizations, including Airbus, Seaspan Shipyards, Kawasaki, Microsoft, BMW, Honda, and Red Bull.

Aras’ current era is marked by the appointment of Roque Martin as CEO in 2021, as well as the acquisitions of Minerva Group and XPLM, and partnerships with AVEVA and SAIC.

We will be recognizing our 25th year in a variety of ways. At ACE 2025, we are hosting an anniversary party/reception and look forward to celebrating with all of you. To kick things off, we turned to some Aras employees, “old” and new, to tell us about their favorite memories of working at Aras. We think you’ll enjoy hearing them. We encourage all of you with memories of being part of the Aras community to share them in the comments below.

Rob McAveney, CTO (2003)

My favorite memory is the first time a Fortune 50 company called us after implementing Aras Innovator on their own. They had already achieved business value and reached out to become a subscriber, validating our platform as a proven solution.

Bill Turner, VP, Quality and Support (2005)

Years ago, back in the early days of Aras, I was in the kitchen getting a cup of coffee when this guy walked in and said hi. He had seen our website and wanted to talk PLM. I joked, “I guess we take walk-ins,” I told him to wait a minute while I went to find a salesperson.

Erica Schumann, Marketing Programs Manager (2021)

My first thought was about ACE and seeing Aras in the Round. I’ve never been at a company where the CEO and CTO open themselves up to the community like they do at ACE and give everyone an open mic to ask questions.

Kylie Ochab, Senior Manager, Communications (2017)

I started as an Aras intern in the summer of 2017, which led to the incredible opportunity to attend ACE 2018. It was not just a chance to learn more about Aras – it was my first experience truly feeling the energy of the Aras community. People talk about it, but being at ACE and experiencing it firsthand truly brings it to life. Eight years later, it’s still one of my favorite parts of working at Aras.

John Sperling, VP of Ecosystem Solution Development (2011)

In December 2013 Aras employees were visited by “Surface Clause” (aka Aras CEO and Founder Peter Schroer) who gifted each of us a brand-new Surface Pro 2 to celebrate our close relationship with Microsoft. Soon after that we won the contract for Microsoft’s OnePDM system which was used to design and build future generations of Surface laptops and other hardware like Xbox. I was grateful to use multiple generations of Surfaces as my work laptop; being able to do my work on a device built using our software was a highlight of my career.

Beth Ewing, Director, Global Experience Marketing (2015)

I think it was 2017. A year earlier, we signed a customer called Valley Fine Foods, a food and beverage company, which was not our typical industry. Valley Fine Foods, among other products, supplies prepackaged pasta and sauces that you can buy in the grocery store. As a special treat they sent us a big box filled with a mixture of pastas and sauces. We decided to have some fun with it and host lunch in the Aras kitchen for everyone. We were a smaller group back then. We cooked for much of the afternoon. We had multiple pots on hotplates cooking the pasta and sauces rotating through the microwave. Then we all sat down and had a Valley Fine Foods feast in celebration of our customer.

Andrey Knourenko, SVP, Engineering (2005)

I was drawn to working at Aras because Aras’ innovative approach to PLM allowed us to maintain our thought leadership over time and pioneer several capabilities in the PLM domain. One of the pivotal moments for Aras was the decision in the mid-2000s to make Aras Innovator an “enterprise open source” product. This meant it could be downloaded for free, and we switched to a subscription model where customers paid for support and upgrades. This approach was quite innovative in the PLM industry at that time. In the years that followed, all major PLM vendors adopted subscription models as well.

We hope you enjoyed this peek behind the (Aras) curtain as much as we did sharing it. There are so many emotions around a 25th anniversary—accomplishment, pride, gratitude, and warmth, to name a few. To all members of the “Aras Family,” current and past employees, founders to recently joined, partners, customers, and friends, we want to say a big THANK YOU! for being part of the Aras story. It’s been a great ride so far, and the best is yet to come! We hope to see you at ACE 2025 and that you will join us in celebrating our first 25 years!

Don’t forget to check out Aras: 25 Years of Innovation and Growth, an infographic celebrating our 25 years of milestones.