Enterprise Open Source PLM, How Can This Be Possible?

Over the past couple months Jeff Cope at Extensible CAD Technologies has been doing a detailed product review of the Aras PLM software solution suite for the CAD community site ConnectPress.

This is a pretty good overview of the solution functionality and features in Aras, and in his latest installment he wonders:

As I reviewed the Aras enterprise PLM solution suite I thought how is this possible? How can Aras have developed such a comprehensive solution? How have they avoided the pitfalls that plague other PLM systems? How come it’s so easy to use? And how can this suite of solutions be open source and free?

The answer, as everyone in the community knows, is collective knowledge resulting in open innovation that has snowballed over a number of years. Harnessing the ideas and inputs from companies like Lockheed, Motorola, and XEROX has produced some really advanced capabilities in a ready-to-use format.

The great thing about the open approach that Jeff didn’t note is that it accelerates exponentially. This means that each community member gets back a lot more than they put in.

What’s your take? Will collaborative development expand PLM for the better? Or will the powers that be keep PLM software hostage forever?

You can read Jeff’s full review, insights, and opinions at any one of the CAD community web sites, whichever one you are signed up for (free logon is needed to get to the article).