Design Collaboration in the Extended Enterprise?

Recently, I saw a comment from Carl Bass, CEO of Autodesk, that he intends to keep Autodesk focused on CAD and PDM (Product Data Management), and leave Enterprise PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) to the other players.

This, for me, raises the question: Where does Design Collaboration sit in the enterprise workflow?

In my recent Extended Enterprise series, I have been addressing the challenges of Collaboration across Extranet/Extraprise. [The articles are here, here, and here.]

I also wrote a previous article called CAD PLM Shuffles, indicating that the divorce of IBM and Dassault, the turnaround at PTC, the sale of UGS to Siemens are industry events that will create an opportunity for movement and rearrangement.

Add to this the fact that SAP has been trying to enter the PLM space, and has tied up with Adobe to provide the web collaboration functionality, and we have yet another contributor to change.

CAD and PLM have been fairly stodgy industries that don’t have major shifts. It seems like now is one such rare time in history when shifts might occur. The trend driving this need for movement is the Extended Enterprise, and I am curious to hear how Carl Bass interprets it.

Related Reading: Enterprise 3.0.