Siemens' LMS Acquisition Update

Not very often do you hear about the state of an acquisition. Normally, you hear the exciting announcement of the plans for the acquisition, the official closing announcement, and then nothing. Nothing, that is, until all of a sudden some new features show up in your software tool that look vaguely familiar to that old company’s software... what was their name again?

Earlier this month Chuck Grindstaff, CEO of Siemens PLM Software, wrote about the progress already being made leveraging LMS’s solutions for systems verification and validation. Some of that leveraging includes improved interoperability between LMS and Siemens PLM Software products, starting with NX Nastran and LMS Virtual.Lab.  Considering LMS’s main focus in automotive, aerospace, and energy, bundling into the high-end Siemens products makes sense both in terms of customer base and user base. Granted, there are automotive customers like Local Motors and Edison 2 that use Solid Edge instead of NX for CAD, but I do not have any information regarding what simulation software they use. Since Solid Edge even defaults to NX Nastran for complex simulations, I can’t argue with the wisdom of this strategy.

That fact that in as little as 5 to 6 months users are seeing (going to see) the fruits of the acquisition is a significant accomplishment compared to similar acquisitions in the past.  Industry is constantly trying to decrease time to market by compressing the design and verification cycle.  The industry is also starting to remember that engineering comes first, design (CAD) comes second.  There is no reason to create geometry if the physics don’t support the requirements.  Integrating systems validation and verification earlier into the process is a step that supports both of these objectives.

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