Velocity Series: Ready to Step into the Limelight

Last month, just as Siemens PLM Connection conference (May 2-5, Las Vegas, Nevada) drew to a close, Karsten Newbury, senior VP and general manager for Siemens PLM Software’s Velocity Series; Bill McClure, VP of development for Velocity Series Portfolio; and I sat down to talk about Solid Edge, the centerpiece of Velocity Series.

With NX often grabbing headlines, I asked McClure if he felt Solid Edge, NX’s younger cousin that serves the small and midsize markets, was missing out on the spotlight.

“Fair question, but not really,” replied McClure. “Each focuses on meeting its market demands and customers’ [needs] ... Solid Edge is for [designing] out-of-the-box, shrink-wrapped products, whereas NX is focused on enterprise products, driven by large customers’ requirements ... Some of the customer wins with NX—with Daimler, Chrysler, and so forth—those happened as a result of long-term, multi-year partnerships.” Solid Edge, by contrast, may be a solution “for thousands of small customers.”

But Siemens may be ready to turbocharge its Velocity Series-related initiatives. Newbury revealed, “We had a series of Productivity Summits at the regional level last year. In mid-June, we’ll have a global Productivity Summit.” The first global summit will coincide with Synchronous Technology 4’s launch. Set to take place in Huntsville, Alabama (where Solid Edge development team is based), the event will bring together “the people who use the software and the people who write the code,” according to Newbury.

Another move to engage with Solid Edge community comes in the form of a new appointment for Mark Burhop, a CAD blogger (who uses his Second Life avatar’s headshot as his blog identify). Burhop used to be Solid Edge Simulation manager, responsible for integrating Femap’s simulation and analysis functions into the CAD package. Burhop recently became programs director of technology ecosystem, Newbury explained.

“We have quite a few partners that develop apps on top of Solid Edge and other Velocity products,” said Newbury. “But we haven’t done too good a job of making those partners known to the community.” He acknowledged some of Siemens’ rivals had done a better job of fostering communities. “We’ve got some catching up to do there,” he said. Burhop will be responsible for taking the existing community “a step further.”

In the last couple of years, NX and Teamcenter have been thrust into the limelight by HD PLM, Siemens’ approach to use CAD models as the interface to query, retrieve, and edit PLM (product lifecycle management) data hosted in Teamcenter. So I asked McClure if Teamcenter Express, the version bundled with Velocity Series, is set to receive the same HD PLM facelift.

“Teamcenter Express is truly just a configuration of Teamcenter,” he said. “It’s basically the same technology, the same back-end software, and so forth. Technically, I don’t see any reason why HD PLM cannot be used with Teamcenter Express ... As an example, the new version of Teamcenter Mobility (a client app designed for the iPad) works with Teamcenter Express. We just validated that. It can work as a client to use with Teamcenter or Teamcenter Express.”

McClure, however, didn’t reveal if Siemens has any plans to bring HD PLM to the Velocity Series.

For more, listen to the complete conversation below. (It was recorded in an isolated corner by the entrance of Rio Hotel and Casino. Hence, the ambiance noise.)