I think we can all recognize that one of the most recent wave of disruptions to the CAD industry started with when a number of modeling approaches converged. Direct and Feature-based approaches merged. 3D modeling and 2D sketching got mashed up as well. Today, we have single apps or suites of integrated apps that do it all. And in my opinion, I think there have been significant benefits associated with those changes.

Now, you might think that there’s a lot of legs left in that last wave. And you’re probably right. But get ready, because the next wave of disruption is getting ready to crash upon us. I’m talking about CAD in the Cloud of course. Autodesk announced Fusion 360 in December 2012. Dassault Systèmes announced Solidworks Mechanical Conceptual a couple weeks ago. And yes, there are all sort sorts of implications of this latest jump in tech. More compute power. Easier sharing.

Today, however, I want to focus on one of the impact of this change on PDM. Because whether it was unforeseen or simply unintended, I believe the implications are significant. Why? Because the rules of PDM are changing because of CAD in the Cloud. What follows are some of those new implications.

You can read the full post at ENGINEERING.com.