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One-to-One: PLM? Microsoft? SOA? Open Source? Aras says yes
June 6, 2008

I had the chance to talk with ... both Marc Lind and Peter Schroer from Aras Corporation in separate conversations in recent times about the progress they are making since transitioning to an open source model over a year ago. My first reaction to their move was "what's that all about?" Time has passed, and I am pleasantly surprised by the traction they have made, breaking free from a pack of vendors that were increasingly starting to look the same. I am even more pleased to see that the market is rewarding them for it.



They did What!?
I have always been intrigued by Aras. They have good people and good ideas, and I was introduced to them a while back based on some unique architectural approaches they took with their solution. But Aras struggled to differentiate themselves based on architecture, and did not have the mass or scale to compete with the likes of Dassault, EDS PLM (now Siemens PLM), PTC, and even Agile (now Oracle). How could they get their message across on their architecture? The answer was - they couldn't. It wasn't enough to differentiate. They needed to be more different.

In 2005, Aras dropped its support for all platforms except for Microsoft. The move appeared to be an attempt to move to smaller businesses. Which, in fact, worked. Then, in January of 2007 they did something that took my by surprise. They made a very bold move and went open source. PLM? Microsoft? Open Source? SOA? XML? There was a lot to the move and more acronyms than you can shake a stick at, but the key is this:

You could get a free download of the software. No strings attached. 

Aras adopted a proven open source model to complement this, by offering enterprise and small business support packages (this is where they make their money, of course). Effectively, they removed the license fee to start using the software and went straight to maintenance. A gutsy move, but even free software is of no value if it doesn't provide value. Open source just gave Aras a foot in the door. How much more different can you be than free? 

What they Offer
Aras offers support for PLM business processes. One of the refreshing things about them is that they focus on solving problems versus focusing solely on core PDM. One example of this is their offering for quality management, supporting process like APQP. They also support change and configuration management, where they just announced 4 star certification on CMII from the Institute of Configuration Management (ICM). To their credit, Aras focuses on solving problems and not just selling software. Wait, they don't even sell the software... you know what I mean.

Aras also has a very interesting architecture that takes advantage of model-based programming approaches, but that is probably more than we want to get into in this blog. The key to this is that it is made to be customized, making it an excellent choice for an open source model where companies gain source code and frequently modify the product. Aras is also supporting a community where these enhancements can be openly shared among the community.


Who do they Work With?
Based on offering free software, you might expect that they would be selling primarily to small companies (they thought so, too). You would be wrong. They were, but they are not unhappy about the larger companies downloading and using the software. They are also finding traction in larger companies, many of whom have invested in other, traditional PLM systems. Aras can extend traditional PLM solutions by providing a business process layer on top of their PDM solutions, or be implemented as the core PLM solution itself.

So that's what I hear from Aras, I hope you found it useful. What do you think? What else should I have asked them? Is open source PLM for real?

Posted by Jim Brown on June 6, 2008 | Comments (0)