New Study Highlights Best PLM Vendors

March 14, 2011
Autodesk, Dassault-Systemes, PTC, and Siemens PLM lead the pack.

IDC Manufacturing Insights has released a new MarketScape report profiling and ranking key vendors in the PLM software applications market.

IDC MarketScape vendor analysis reports utilize a rigorous scoring methodology that produces a definitive assessment of each vendors current market capabilities and strategies for competing in the future.

In the report, IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Product Life-Cycle Management (PLM) Applications 2011 Vendor Assessment: CAx, Discrete, and Process PLM, PLM vendors were evaluated on three different market segments based on their product offerings:

  • Computer Aided Authoring (CAx) which includes CAD, CAM, and CAE: Vendors that offer computer-aided design, machining, and visual simulation software including process design and simulation fall in this segment.
  • Discrete Manufacturing: Vendors that offer enterprise product data management or product life-cycle management software that address discrete manufacturing industries such as aerospace, automotive, high tech, medical devices, heavy machinery, and shipbuilding fall in this segment.
  • Process Manufacturing: Vendors that offer software to manage the life cycle of a process for industries like chemical, drugs, oil and gas, food and beverage, and paint development, are included in this segment.


The three segments of the PLM market exhibit diverse characteristics that suppliers must take into consideration when crafting a future strategy and in leveraging existing capabilities to their best advantage. The factors were weighted because IDC Manufacturing Insights believes that some are more important than others in maximizing market opportunity and realizing market success.

The IDC MarketScape methodology placed Autodesk, Dassault-Systemes, PTC, and Siemens PLM as market leaders in the CAx PLM segment. Though CAx has been perceived as a mature segment with little growth, its relevance and expansion has been ignored by enterprise, desktop software vendors, and enterprise software vendors.

In the process PLM segment, IDC Manufacturing Insights placed Oracle in the market leader category. The highly competitive nature of process industry verticals, which require products to be replaced quickly resulting in the need for shorter manufacturing cycles, has made process PLM end-users seek software applications that will help them achieve process efficiencies quickly.

Finally, Siemens PLM and Dassault Systemes were placed in the market leader category in the most dominant and highly competitive discrete PLM segment. Fierce competition, lower barriers to entry for ERP vendors, and slow adoption of new software technologies and platforms by manufacturers have made vendors slow to change strategies in this segment.

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