PTC to Acquire Onshape
You really have to hand it to Jon Hirschtick and his team. They really know how to make money in the CAD space. This release from PTC announces that they will buy Onshape.
PTC is of course Parametric Technology, the storied developers of Pro/ENGINEER (now Creo), the grand daddy of SolidWorks itself, and developer of the history-based method for developing CAD models.
Onshape is the creation of several of the original SolidWorks developers to answer a perceived need for CAD in the cloud. It’s a nice product, and does several innovative things, but the big innovation has been delivery method – cloud, or SaaS (software as a service). To me the more important innovation has been including the CAD data into database, which makes a lot of things possible. Onshape still uses the history-based method for constructing solid models.
PTC has faded from their former glory in the CAD realm, and Onshape is one of the rising stars in this space. It is interesting to see the technology, and certain members of the team go full circle through PTC, SolidWorks, Onshape, and back to PTC.
Congratulations to Mr. Hirschtick and his team.
Hmmm….I’m going to call it as I see it – unfortunately it’s a failed mission along the lines we anticipated back when. 5000 users is kind of puny considering. Granted they put a whole lot of work into making it but it just didn’t fit the bill. This was a golden opportunity to better SWX and it should have played out differently. If only they had listened to the users telling them what would have benefited them instead of letting the venture capitalists lofty cloud ambitions lead them on. Oh well… I wonder if PTC can do anything worthwhile with it. Perhaps the inherited license restrictions will make it too difficult to do much else than continue with it as is which might amount to a dead duck acquisition. I imagine at least some people are pleased they were able to unload their pup on someone else.. and just before the market looks like crashing. Call me cynical and other things if you wish
RE: “They really know how to make money in the CAD space.” Remember, Venture Capital comes at a high price, and has to be repaid with a profit attached in one form or another. Taxes from any gain must be included also. Just sayin’
Another shock was that OnShape only claimed 5,000 users! For PTC that means $470,000,000 / 5,000 = $94,000 per current user, very expensive in my opinion.
Devon, I was similarly surprised at the 5,000 subscribers number—figured it would be much higher than that. Perhaps the high cost of SaaS (forever) and value for cloud-based CAD combined to be of less value than anticipated to those willing to pay for it?
Hey Jeff-
Seems that way. For me, OnShape was slow and clunky. I was not a fan of the Tabs either.
My current favorite is Fusion 360, which has a working “Offline” mode. I wish more people used F360, it’s packed with great features, it’s updated at least 1 a month, and it’s only $500/year. Watch the F 360 videos from the recent F 360 Academy in Portland OR, good stuff in the pipeline coming soon.
Cheers,
Devon
I thought 5000 was more than I expected. 500 would have been a low number.
Matt – looks like you finally warmed up to the Cloud. I mention this in context of your old piece – https://dezignstuff.com/blood-in-the-water/
No, I haven’t warmed to CAD in the cloud. If people don’t understand the downside of intellectual property on the cloud, that’s their problem. Unfortunately you can’t separate the great innovations from the dangerous ones. Or the distasteful subscription access. I don’t have to like it to recognize something significant.
I suppose the quandary I find myself in based on past experience only, not on any current need or concern, is that that experience, admittedly many years ago and probably currently irrelevant, made me rather despise the sales arrogance that PTC guys carried. SW was the go-to. OK, so I dislike PTC.
Got to give congrats to Hirschtick, though. He was sort of “just a guy” at local conferences back in the day.
There’s a WOW for ya!!!