PLM has yet to mature much past PDM with a new interface.  A rethink of the purpose of PLM in context of a Enterprise Class Application that engages the total corporation rather than a subset of geometry creators is needed.  For PLM to reach its infered objective to manage the life cycle of a product it must bring other disciplines into the product dialog beyond discussing geometry.  PLM must declare itself as the manager of products not the administrator of data files. 

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., April 20, 2009 -- Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) and Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) announced today they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle will acquire Sun common stock for $9.50 per share in cash. The transaction is valued at approximately $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net of Sun’s cash and debt. “We expect this acquisition to be accretive to Oracle’s earnings by at least 15 cents on a non-GAAP basis in the first full year after closing. We estimate that the acquired business will contribute over $1.5 billion to Oracle’s non-GAAP operating profit in the first year, increasing to over $2 billion in the second year. This would make the Sun acquisition more profitable in per share contribution in the first year than we had planned for the acquisitions of BEA, PeopleSoft and Siebel combined,” said Oracle President Safra Catz. “The acquisition of Sun transforms the IT industry, combining best-in-class enterprise software and mission-critical computing systems,”...

In a March 13, 2009 blog entry in this space, COFES attendees were invited to check out the latest financial performance numbers of the leading MCAD, EDA and IP vendors for Q4 2008, by downloading the three most recent quarterly Industry Commentaries from the IBSystems’ website. In those reports, only the small IP category defied recessionary forces by posting a combined revenue increase for Q4 2008, while both the covered MCAD and EDA categories posted revenue declines. To supplement those numbers, the EDA Consortium (EDAC) this week released its revenue report for the entire EDA Industry for Q4 2008. On April 7, 2009, the EDAC Market Statistics Service (MSS) announced that total electronic design automation (EDA) industry revenue for Q4 2008 declined 17.7% to $1318.7 million, compared to $1602.7 million in Q4 2007. This 17.7% decline for the whole EDA industry was smaller than the 24% decline for the five selected EDA vendors covered in the March EDA Industry Commentary, including the Big 3. Note that...

Has the bottom of the recession in US car sales been reached? The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that despite “another major sales decline in March 2009, auto makers expressed a rare bit of optimism on April 1, 2009, saying they see signs the industry's downturn might be near bottom and a recovery could be starting.” All of the “big car makers suffered sales declines of 36% or more in March 2009 compared to March 2008. Industry-wide, US sales totaled 857,735 cars and light trucks, down 37% from a year earlier, according to AutoData Corp. But that's up from 688,909 vehicles sold in February 2009 and was the highest total since September 2008.” The “annualized sales pace, a closely watched indicator, came in at 9.86 million vehicles, well below the 16 million or more the industry typically logged a few years ago, but up from February's pace of 9.12 million.” USA Today reported that while “more cars and trucks usually are sold in March than in February, the jump this year was 24.5%, the biggest February-to-March...