EXTRANET NEWS * Week of 6 October 2003

EXTRANET NEWS * Week of 6 October 2003
Editors: Joel Orr and N'omi Orr
http://www.extranetnews.com

1. A QUESTION FOR YOU
2. SERIOUS MANUFACTURING COLLABORATION: EDS TEAMCENTER COMMUNITY
3. THE LIST
4. TIDBITS
5. QUOTE OF THE WEEK

1. A QUESTION FOR YOU

Before I ask you, I need to provide the context:

1. I’ve been playing around with blogs for a while now—remember, these are “Web logs,” diaries with links; often with comments. For an example, see the one on the front page at http://www.joelorr.com.

2. I’m overwhelmed by email. SpamArrest (www.spamarrest.com) has relieved me of most spam. And my direct personal business communications are just where they need to be, in terms of volume. But there are many newsletters and ezines that I really want to read, but just can’t, for lack of time.

So what I’ve started doing is identifying the ones that appear on websites and unsubscribing to them. That way, when I have a need or a desire for an update on topic X, I know where to go; but it’s not overwhelming my inbox.

3. My question: Would you rather that EXTRANET NEWS were a blog you must go to rather than a newsletter that comes to you?

I would update it as items came along, instead of just once a week; it would have a button under every article allowing you to add your thoughts; and it would have facilities (Bloglet and RSS) that would enable you to sign up to receive an email notifying you when something is added to the blog.

In fact, I will make the evaluation process simple. I will set up a blog on the EXTRANET NEWS site (www.extranetnews.com) tonight. Let me know what you think of it.

I’ll still maintain The List, Tidbits, and even the Quote of the Week.

Your thoughts? Please email me.

2. SERIOUS MANUFACTURING COLLABORATION: EDS TEAMCENTER COMMUNITY

Joel spoke with Mike Sellberg, EDS Teamcenter director of product management. (See http://www.eds.com/products/plm/teamcenter/).

When EDS bought UG Systems and SDRC, they almost immediately announced Teamcenter as a new brand. When asked which of the old products it encompassed, the company’s answers sounded equivocal. “Teamcenter is a conceptual umbrella for PDM (product data management), collaboration, and related products,” a company spokesman told me.

Both SDRC and UGS had successful PDM systems, each with its own strengths. Collaboration was most highly developed, at that time, in the products acquired with EAI, the Iowa-based visualization and simulation company.

Today, Sellberg is responsible for four Teamcenter brands: Teamcenter Community (which used to be eViz); Teamcenter Visualization; Teamcenter Requirements (which used to be SDRC Slate); and Teamcenter Project (also from SDRC). (Other Teamcenter brands include Enterprise and Engineering.)

The product of greatest interest to EXTRANET NEWS is Teamcenter Community, a Web-based collaboration module for the other Teamcenter pieces. (Small ActiveX clients are downloaded to support visualization and conferencing.) It is designed to give users access to unstructured data, complementing the PDM functionality of other Teamcenter modules.

Teamcenter v.5, coming out next week, is based on Microsoft SharePoint 2.0. “Initially, Teamcenter was built in Java on .Net,” said Sellberg. “But we realized that basic collaboration capabilities were really properly part of the operating system infrastructure, not an application. With that understanding, and with the knowledge that Microsoft saw things that way, too, we moved to SharePoint.”

Like many Microsoft first releases, SharePoint 1.0 had problems. “But 2.0 has resolved the major ones,” said Sellberg. “It is now a rich and scalable collaboration platform.”

“Our customer base understands that collaboration is part of the IT infrastructure, so that means they will only accept large, known providers. Microsoft is the most obvious candidate, one they are comfortable with. Since we are not an infrastructure player, we just want to partner with the winner. That’s why we’ve gone with SharePoint,” said Sellberg.

Another important point: SharePoint is free with Windows 2003.

“Not all manufacturers use Teamcenter as their PDM,” said Sellberg. “Teamcenter Community integrates with an open supply chain, interacting well with other PDMs.”

EDS just sent out a press release announcing that the number of overall Teamcenter users has passed the one-million mark. Sellberg says that at least a fifth are Teamcenter Community users.

Our take: Teamcenter has evolved from a variety of distinct products. A large user base means there are plenty of people to interview if you are considering acquiring this product; that’s good.

3. THE LIST

Total companies: 265 (see who's on The List at http://www.extranetnews.com/).

4. TIDBITS

· PLANT SUCCESS is not just a conference at the Philadelphia Airport Marriott, October 15-16, 2003 (http://www.plantsuccess.com). It is a community. And it comes with a free newsletter, full of thoughtful commentary and fascinating links, by industry veteran Carlton Howk. If you have anything to do with plant design, construction, or management, you should find out more about it.

· CONNECTING THE DOTS: UNDERSTANDING THE EMERGING DIGITAL BUILDING PROCESS - October 16-19, 2003; Omni Hotel, San Francisco. To register, visit: http://www.aia.org/tap/conference/2003.

· PROJECT EXTRANETS IV: SUCCESSFUL COLLABORATIVE WORKING; MAXIMISING EXTRANETS FOR OPTIMUM RESULTS, organized by Ross Sturley and Construction News, London, England, 3 December 2003, at the IEE Savoy Place. The one I attended a couple of years ago was outstanding. See http://www.projectextranets.co.uk/ for information.

5. QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"If you are unwilling to defend your right to your own lives, then you are merely like mice trying to argue with owls. You think their ways are wrong. They think you are dinner."

--Terry Goodkind in "Naked Empire"

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