PTC acquires OnShape!

Huge news from PTC yesterday when Jim Heppelmann announced that PTC would be acquiring OnShape (from the founders of SolidWorks) for $470 million.

I posted a video on my YouTube channel about this:

Now that I've had a night to ruminate on this, I think this is going to end up being bigger than my initial surprise.

For one, the public relations value cannot be underestimated. The founders of SolidWorks now work for PTC. We have all heard the complaints and comparisons regarding Creo Parametric with respect to SolidWorks.

Also I continue to be impressed with Jim Heppelmann's leadership. I remember years ago being at the PTC User conference (I believe this was before it was called LiveWorx) when PTC was branching out into Internet of Things (IoT) and Augmented Reality, and people were genuinely concerned about losing focus on CAD and PLM. But Jim's acquisition and partnership strategy continues to be a winning one. For example, people had an aversion to Creo Simulate and Geometric Element Analysis (GEA) / p-elements. What does Jim do? Partner with ANSYS to provide real-time simulation inside of Creo Parametric. (Just wait for Creo Parametric 7.0 when AIM becomes available inside Creo.)

This is a huge move for PTC. I really see Creo Parametric's User Interface / User Experience improving as a result of the cross-pollination, and this helps lower the barrier to entry for companies to expand their CAD offerings through the Software as a Service (SaaS) strategy.

More news to come certainly... let me know YOUR thoughts.