In an interesting editorial, Jeff Moad quotes Larry Ellison to the effect that Oracle has not managed to make money with "software as a service" (SaaS) applications, and that he thinks it's a major challenge that is probably slowing down some rollouts.It's a fascinating point - and a sobering one. Investors and customers alike seem to be demanding that software vendors convert to SaaS as soon as possible. The customer benefits are obvious--less hardware; less IT management; easier to expense; software is always up to date. But if it is to work for vendors, the economics have to make sense.According to Moad, Salesforce.com, SAP, and others simply set prices too low. That surprises me; was the expectation to make it up in volume?CAD vendors are saluting the SaaS flag with more and more vigor, although bandwidth issues have limited full-blown transition to the new model. Sounds like a squeeze is coming for vendors; if your competitor is offering...

Now that specification-based engineering is being supeseded by modeling how shall we avoid confusion about modeling?

A recent CfP stated "Model-Driven Engineering is about creating, transforming, generating, interpreting, weaving models using modelling languages, tools, etc."

Made me wonder where the problem statement came from that triggers such engineering.

Does the author mean Model-Building Engineering (as in We Are Driven) instead of Model-driven?

If the author described MDE properly, then in what ways is model-based systems engineering, MBSE, distinct from this MDE?

And should we first model the problematic siituation in order to make sure that the engineering effort addresses the right problem?

For the past five years, I have been working on a book covering the history of the CAD industry. At COFES 2008 I announced that the book, The Engineering Design Revolution - The People, Companies and Computer Systems that Changed Forever the Practice of Engineering, would be made freely available on-line. That has occurred and the book can be accessed at www.cadhistory.net. Each chapter can be individually downloaded or the entire book is available as a single download.

Accoding to Jon Peddie, this is now an $8 billion industry. The book describes how this all started shortly after World War II when MIT began applying its early computer technology to the development of NC machine tools. The Engineering Design Revolution covers how this led to SKETCHPAD, the Electronic Drafting Machine (Itek and CDC) and the formation of Computervision and Applicon. There are 22 chapters that describe the history of the major players in this industry. Many people helped insure that...

In the June 29, 2008 blog entry in this space, entitled, “Will the ‘Big 3’ EDA Vendors soon become the ‘Big 2’??”, it was parenthetically mentioned that MCAE vendor ANSYS was in the process of absorbing EDA vendor ANSOFT.ANSYS and ANSOFT had agreed that ANSYS would acquire ANSOFT for a purchase price of approximately $832 million in a mix of cash and ANSYS common stock based on the 10-day trailing average closing price of ANSYS common stock prior to the original announcement of the pending transaction on March 31, 2008.ANSYS received SEC clearance for the ANSOFT acquisition on June 23, 2008. A special meeting of the ANSOFT stockholders to approve the transaction has been set for July 23, 2008.Meanwhile, on July 8, 2008, ANSYS announced that it has been listed on this year's Russell 1000(R) stock index. ANSYS was one of six companies in the technology sector just added to the Russell large-cap index."The Russell 1000 Index is one of a number of recent milestones that validate our long-term strategy and commitment...

We talk about it a lot, but interoperability is what it is all about.

If you've been to COFES, you've met Ruth. Her husband Jason called me a little while ago to say that Ruth  gave birth today at 8:27 pm EDT to a healthy boy! Name, weight, etc. to follow...Ruth is feeling great, as is Jason the new dad - and of course, the entire family!

Happy great-grandpa Joel