PTC Lightning??

I have no idea what's in the works, but if I had to wager a guess, it would be something along the lines of a Virtual Reality modeling environment...seems to me though that we're still years (decades?) from that kind of technology becoming mainstream. It'll be interesting....

How about using touch screen technology? They have been working with Microsoft pretty closely with Sharepoint. That would be pretty sweet IMO.

Andy,

Not sure if you had a chance to look at the website, but we did put a couple of videos (one of Jim and one of Brian) that talk about Project Lightning and a 2 page strategy statement. You can find that here: http://www.ptc.com/project-lightning/

Hopefully you will find this information useful.

Robinl

I'm still not sure what that is, could you please re-explain.

Mike, how do you guys choose your product names? Wildfire, Lightning, Windchill seems like a theme??

Although the objectives I've seen on Project Lightning looks promising, the bits and pieces have me concerned as far as the manner of implementing it when you have investment of in PTC's current CAD and PLM software offerings. It would appear that Lightning is more than just a CAD tool, it's PLM and a whole new CAD tool built on Granite that are tightly integrated. If you look at what other companies are doing (i.e. Siemens' HD-PLM with NX7) I think the lines are going to start to blur a bit. They are two separate apps, but only really powerful together.

My guess would be, as many others have stated, there will be no Pro/E Wildfire 6 and no CoCreate 18. These apps will be combined into a CAD tool with differing modules to provide both a history based and history free manner of working with the CAD data.

On the PLM side, PTC's continued close working relationship with Microsoft would lead me to think that you'll see them pushing their PLM products more towards MIcrosoft SQL server and tighter integration with SharePoint unless you're a mega multi-national corporation with thousands of seats. I don't necessarily see this as a problem technically for an implementation our size (~55 users, no common server / integration between our sites yet). But yesterdayI received a survey from PTC yesterday regarding CAD Data Management that was heavy in mentioning SharePoint, pay as you go PLM and indicated a "new" PLM product was being developed and soon released for beta testing. Umm, what's going on guys?

Where I have the big questions are how does the licensing move forward? I'm in the midst of a test implementation if Windchill PDMLink 9.1 (updating to M060 as I write) so we can finally move off of Wildfire 3.0. Please, PTC, you'd better not be introducing a "new" PLM product that actually is a good fit for an implementation our size. Granted, that's what I've wanted, but we just bit the bullet and coughed up the cash for PDMLink. If they expect me to pay more (again) to move to some newer, better, more microsofty PLM system in order to go to Pro/E-Lightning - they've got another think coming.

Then there is the CAD side. Do my licenses for Pro/E carry forward to licensing for "Lightning" without (I'll stress WITHOUT) any license conversion, uplift or whatever else they want to call such charges? Everything they indicate so far would mean your data carries forward, but what about my licensing?

I think the concept of where they are going sounds great. My concerns are with how it's implemented and how much it will cost us to get there. I might sound cynical, but PTC's history of planned product obsolecense and pushing something new to replace the "old" always costs us huge $ and a lot of time. Are there benefits to be gained? Many times yes. But it shouldn't cost existing customers this much, on top of annual maintenance charges, to stay with their products. I'm tired of being backed into a corner and told I have to pay more so they can keep their share holders and bankers happy.

Erik