How much is Aras investing in engineering support? If you look at the different PLM solution providers today, you see a lot of investment in areas outside of engineering. Depending on which provider we’re talking about, their investment in engineering might be very small. Aras has two notable investment areas in the engineering side of things. One is with the simulation process and data management. They acquired Comet Solutions, which has been well known for automation capabilities in running simulation templates. They provide powerful capabilities, allowing you to connect to lots of different simulation and analysis tools.

Typically, with a lot of solution providers, you would see them continue to offer that as an independent solution, which they will continue to offer, but they plan on breaking that down into web services and incorporate it into the core innovator PLM set. You will have the ability to mix and match different capabilities with simulation process data management alongside PLM capabilities. A different and separate area is system engineering. Aras is developing a tool to not only manage requirements, but to develop a fuller RFLP kind of representation of a system, so requirements, functions, logical architectures, and physical architectures. This is in part because of the draw around more electronics and software in smart connected products. That is the driving factor, but they’re coming out with a new solution later this year.

Those are two distinct areas where Aras is investing heavily to offer engineering capabilities, which may sound unusual in today’s market. Take care and talk soon.