Occasionally, we record the webinar for the convenience of customers in time zones distant from the east coast of the US and for those who want [...]]]> As you may know, we present a live webinar every week at noon ET. You can always sign up for the next week’s webinar by visiting http://www.vuuch.com/webinar.

Occasionally, we record the webinar for the convenience of customers in time zones distant from the east coast of the US and for those who want to be able to stop and start the demonstrations. We also vary the content fairly often, so there’s usually something new in each webinar.

Today, we presented a webinar I thought had some excellent questions from the audience and in which we showed Vuuch 4.5 running in the cloud (check out the performance of the system in the demo. It screams!)

We hope you enjoy this webinar recording. Also, please note we are always happy to schedule a live webinar at convenient time for you. Just fill in our contact form and we’ll get right back to you.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

So [...]]]> Although I’m not sure if it was SharePoint or ProductPoint that was once the new love… it is now clear they have the makings of an ugly divorce and customers are getting another technology dear john. In the beginning emotion and promotion was rampant – Like any new love affair…

• http://www.ptc.com/appserver/wcms/standards/textsub.jsp?&im_dbkey=72398&icg_dbkey=21
• http://www.ptc.com/WCMS/files/72439/en/6227_PLA_PP_DS.pdf
• http://beyondplm.com/2011/05/05/plm-sharepoint-and-productpoint-lessons/
• http://www.deskeng.com/articles/aaasaj.htm
• http://www.imakenews.com/ptcexpress/e_article001205333.cfm?x=bd69qP1,b3jsqcsB,w

So what went wrong?

Could it be as Tyler Cox said, in a comment about ProductPoint - “This is the dumbest idea that PTC has ever pursued.” and “The things they are proposing to use this tool for can be done in 1/2 the time with a 1 minute meeting in my cubicle. It’s a solution in search of a problem.”

Or is it something else?

• Did SharePoint fail to scale?
• Did a lack of an upgrade path to full Windchill scare people away?
• Or as Al Dean questioned, was there just no revenue profit in it?

And what about Social Product Development?

While it is clear that social still has links at PTC and that these are fueled by SharePoint… why then remove the data management aspect of the solution? Maybe I’m missing something but I thought ProductPoint was the meat behind the Social Product Development message.

Al’s article quoted Tom Shoemaker as saying “In truth, this was simply a natural outcome of our ongoing rationalization of our product portfolio” and that customer feedback “had been generally positive, particularly around ease-of-use.” Doesn’t hearing “in truth” make you think about a guilty politician taking the podium to explain their indiscretions? And how could something that was launched less than three years ago need “rationalization”?  I will ignore “generally positive” as that might be good.

OK enough questions.
If you simplify what a product development team does you will discover they must author content, manage this content and interact in order to make decisions about the project and product they are working on.  Therefore it is clear that product development teams use three distinct layers of technology (Create, Manage and Interact).  And it is also clear that users of any one tool from the create or manage category are a subset of all the people who must interact during a project. Therefore it can be concluded that the interaction layer cannot be rationalized into either the create or manage layer.  Which offers an answer to why ProductPoint failed, as ProductPoint attempted to rationalize the interact layer into a manage tool. I know many of you are crying bull - interact is just another name for collaboration. Well it is not. Interaction is the next generation of collaboration. Collaboration tools were focused on a subset of users and in any product development project the solution used to interact must reach everyone involved. Which means it must be a separate solution that can be used by every person involved in the project, no matter who they are, if they are an employee or partner or what tools they use for create and manage.

It’s not a trick question. The real answer [...]]]> All around us, computing is moving into the cloud.  But what, exactly, is cloud computing? Is it email you access in a browser? The apps you use on your smartphone? A corporate data center? A set of APIs for connecting to computing services? All of these?

It’s not a trick question. The real answer is the definition of cloud computing depends on your application. In that sense, cloud computing is just a synonym for a utility,  much like an electric utility or wire-line telephone company.

However, there are some things that vary markedly based on how you apply the utility computing. Security is a primary concern and top’s everyone’s list of questions about cloud computing.

In the first Vuuch white paper (I hope to have more soon), we describe how Vuuch was designed and architected to leverage cloud computing with security in mind from the start. In fact, this paper actually makes the assertion that compared to email — and its potential for social engineering attacks and “weaponized” email — Vuuch is actually more secure than what many development teams are doing today with their shared intellectual property.

We are very interested in your reactions to this white paper. I would very much appreciate any comments you might make here, on your blog or directly to me at alex@vuuch.com.

Update June 17, 2011:

In our white paper, we talk about how Amazon EC2 delivers additional security to Vuuch. I though readers might be interested in the details of EC2′s approach to security. This PDF on EC2 security is fascinating reading. I think it makes the case that running on a world-class cloud infrastructure offers better operational and system security than many large enterprises (think Sony — or even RSA) build into their own systems

It’s just a single letter, but what a difference it makes. With the power to block unintentional leaks and intrusions while you’re online, that letter could mean the difference between compromised IP [...]]]> Commenting on the release of Vuuch 4.5, Kenneth Wong writes in his Desktop Engineering blog:

It’s just a single letter, but what a difference it makes. With the power to block unintentional leaks and intrusions while you’re online, that letter could mean the difference between compromised IP and protected IP. I’m talking about the lowercase s that follows the http in a URL.

Kenneth has focused on something hugely important to users: the need to have 100% of their transmissions encrypted, 100% of the time. However, many don’t realize the importance of this requirement.

It wasn’t that long ago that SSL (or, as it should more properly be called, TLS) was something a web server switched a client to only for login, usually to protect a password entry. The logic was that TLS was “expensive” because it required — relative to unencrypted transmissions — a lot of computing power to set up and negotiate. While that may have been true in the early 2000′s, given the period’s computing resources and network capacity, it is certainly not true in the age of gigahertz processors and 4G speeds over the air.

The consequences of not encrypting transmissions have led to things like Firesheep, a Firefox plugin designed to be used in public WiFi hotspots that can hijack Facebook and other common applications. (Please do not do something important at Starbucks unless it’s over Vuuch or you are using a VPN.) Because the Internet was never designed to be secure, unless the application you are communicating with takes security seriously (which Facebook of course does not), users are exposed in ways that are subtle, but extraordinarily dangerous, as Firesheep so chillingly demonstrates.

On the other hand, for the “price” of forcing a 100% TLS connection all the time, an application ensures that as long as the certificates are valid in the browser, that anyone intercepting communications (a “man in the middle” attacks) will see randomness in the captured packets. And that randomness will be so impervious to even brute force attacks that it’s impractical to try to decrypt the communications. Plus, TLS provides authentication so users know they are communicating with the server they intended to access.

We are very pleased that Kenneth chose to focus on this aspect of Vuuch 4.5. Personally, I think it’s something that’s not only important to the growing base of Vuuch users — it’s something we should demand of all our providers. 100% SSL (TLS) all time: look for it in Vuuch and your other applications.

…The real problem is the CAD-based work processes to which most product development slavishly clings. Vuuch requires potential users to think outside the box about their product development methods.

We have been [...]]]> Writing about the release of Vuuch 4.5, GraphicSpeak pinpoints the real issue preventing product development teams from improving their core processes:

…The real problem is the CAD-based work processes to which most product development slavishly clings. Vuuch requires potential users to think outside the box about their product development methods.

We have been on the soapbox for some time that legacy “collaboration” solutions in which PLM systems simply bolt on SharePoint simply cannot work. Now that PTC has thrown in the towel on just such a misadventure, we believe the time for true social technology has arrived.

As Oleg points out there are two distinct things going on.  There are, as he states, systems of record and WIP tools.  While I agree the [...]]]> This post started as a reply to Oleg’s post on work-in-progress (WIP) versus system-of-record http://plmtwine.com/2011/06/06/plm-work-in-progress-vs-system-of-records/ but by the time I was done I had written more than a comment…

As Oleg points out there are two distinct things going on.  There are, as he states, systems of record and WIP tools.  While I agree the system of record vendors have always wanted the WIP tools to just go away I do not see this ever happening.  A system of record implies structure/complication and therefore they cannot serve the WIP needs of a team.  Systems of record force a paradigm that does not make sense for WIP.  For example PDM/PLM is built on the idea of a “file” and that the “file must be managed”, which is great if there is a file, but many times there is no file, and in any project there is a ton of time when there is no reason to manage the file.  For example if I have a GPS that I am designing and based on where we are in the life-cycle the “Electronics” are not represented by any files.  What do I do in PDM/PLM?  And what if the files I have are a random collection of things likes sketches, calculations and spreadsheets that the team is using to make decisions?  What value is there for me as an individual user to check these in and why should I stop using email?

Analyzing the current working environment and tools people are using and you will see there is three layers.

• Content Creation tools – Things like CAD, PowerPoint and Visio.  Applications that create files.
• Content Management tools – Things like ERP, CRM, PDM and PLM.  Applications that manage deliverables.
• Interactions tools – Things like video conferencing, phones, meetings, whiteboards, email and lists.  Applications that help people make decisions and track what needs to get done.

The interaction layer which can also be thought of as the decision support layer and the content management layer which is the system of record layer will never converge.  I know it is a very popular belief that somehow these two layers will merge and that the pundits of this idea follow on to say the only way for an IT solution to ever survive is to become a system of record…  Well if this were true how then did we ever end up with email and an inbox?  A big part of the misconceived notion, on the part of the pundants, is well articulated in this article http://gfxspeak.com/2011/06/06/vuuch-product-development-social-network-migrates-to-amazon-web-services/ from Jon Peddie, al la the “we must manage the files” thinking.

Now I am not saying that better integration of the Interaction layer and the Creation and Management layers wouldn’t be great.  Actually I believe it is a requirement of the next generation of Interaction solutions and a big part of what makes this layer social.  In the Peddie article he talks about thinking “outside the box”…  OK so lets get out of the box – PLM provides a way to capture a revision history for a file across a life-cycle.  If you can get yourself outside the box you will see each file also has a social life-cycle that is not captured as part of a revision history.

Just look at the change note on an ECO and you will see things like ”changed for cost reduction”, which hardly explains what happened, who was involved or what decisions were taken as part of the change.

Of course the social life-cycle is relevant to revisions but the PLM tool has no ability to capture this because the social aspect is contained in the Interaction layer.  The social life-cycle can be seen as those people and decisions that moves an item forward.  The decisions and human interactions that took place to move a file from version A to B.

The FDA has figured this out and has implemented the “Design History File” requirement in order to capture this.  Design History forces a company to understand the decisions/interactions taken from A to B.  The Design History File captures the social life-cycle of each part of a product.

Every item, data, file or deliverable has a social life-cycle.  Even something a simple as a Purchase Order (PO), which the ERP system has well managed, yet people involved on any specific PO exchange and track activity related to it outside the ERP system.  And do not forget that the specific PO might be for prototype parts for a product being designed and therefore this PO’s social life-cycle is connected to that product and related project.  For example maybe there is a problem processing the PO and people need to get together and make decisions with respect to how to proceed and what the impact will be on the project.  The ERP system has no record of this social interaction that is part of the PO’s life-cycle.

OK so it is clear we are outside the box and that the interation layer is here to stay.  So what do we call the next generation of interaction technology?  An Enterprise Social System.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Sign up for a Vuuch trial today if you aren’t already using Vuuch.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Vuuch 4.5 Enterprise Social System Announced
New Release Offers Enhanced Security, Performance and
Usability Improvements

Sudbury, MA, June 6, 2011 – Vuuch, creator of the first enterprise social system (ESS) for manufacturers, today announced the availability of Vuuch™ 4.5. Like the conductor of an orchestra, Vuuch social technology allows all the various parts of a company to work together better. Vuuch delivers numerous benefits to product development teams, as well as across the enterprise, including improved time-to-market, reduction of risk in product development projects and better innovation for both current and future products.

“Many enterprises used to deal with complexity and risk in product development projects by using program coordinators – people whose jobs consisted of ‘chasing down’ the numerous people and things that a project manager needed to deliver a product on time,” said Chris Williams, CEO, Vuuch. “Today’s leaner companies have mostly eliminated this role and distributed those functions directly to individuals. This has enormously complicated the process for everyone involved. Vuuch 4.5 addresses the chaos that reigns in many projects with an easy-to-use, easy-to-deploy, affordable system. And because using Vuuch is easy and even fun, team members will use it willingly. That contributes to better products, sooner.”

New and improved features in Vuuch 4.5

Performance, scalability and security enhancements. Vuuch 4.5 now runs on Amazon Web Services’™ Elastic Compute Cloud ™ (EC2™) cloud computing platform. With this

migration to EC2, Vuuch offers users enhanced performance, almost limitless scalability, significantly improved reliability and increased operational security. As a result, Vuuch users can expand Vuuch usage across their enterprises and around the world with the confidence that Vuuch will match their stringent performance expectations.

Vuuch 4.5 also now encrypts all data transmission to and from users’ browsers and to and from Vuuch plug-ins using the Secure Sockets Layer specification (SSL, also known as TLS or Transport Layer Security). The Vuuch server will negotiate the strongest possible encryption cipher with browsers for each session, up to and including AES 256-bit encryption. Users who attempt to connect to Vuuch 4.5 using a non-encrypted session are immediately redirected to a secure session. Vuuch 4.5 makes it possible for users to deal with important intellectual property issues in the product development process with the knowledge that it would take decades – if not centuries – for a man-in-the-middle attack to decrypt communications between Vuuch clients and the Vuuch 4.5 server.

Click to enlarge

Another benefit of this change is that users can also verify that their browser has connected to the real Vuuch 4.5 server by checking their browser’s address bar. Browsers vary in the way they present authenticated sites to users in the address bar, but all modern browsers indicate a secure, authenticated connection in some way in the address bar. Now, with a quick visual check users can be certain they are communicating with Vuuch 4.5 and not a “phishing” or malware imposter.

New functionality and usability enhancements in Vuuch 4.5

Vuuch 4.5 offers many new and improved capabilities that streamline the project management and product development processes, including:

A new Home page with activity streams and RSS feed capability. Vuuch 4.5 features a redesigned home page that now offers an activity stream. The Vuuch 4.5 activity stream is a time-ordered list of changes to the projects and deliverables the user is involved with.

Click to enlarge

Unlike consumer social networking sites and their business-targeted clones, Vuuch 4.5 activity streams are specific to the projects and people that the user is currently working with. By “narrowing the focus” to just the things the user cares about, Vuuch 4.5 eliminates the need for users to manually filter the social system’s content to get value from it.

Starting with Vuuch 4.5, users are able to take advantage of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to have Vuuch events sent to any RSS-capable client.

As shown here in the Pulse RSS reader for iPhone® (Android® and iPad® versions are also available), Vuuch 4.5’s RSS capability delivers a new level of real-time awareness to the project team. Vuuch 4.5 offers multiple RSS feeds, including feeds for specific deliverables and for product structures.

Click to enlarge

Improved end user access and functionality. Vuuch 4.5 offers users many new ways to interact with each other and the team to reduce project risk and coordinate product development. Now, users may attach any kind of content to a Vuuch page, enabling a “social collection” of all content about a specific deliverable, including notes, files, links and who is or has been involved with that deliverable.

Email – a crucial part of team interaction and a way to include suppliers and customers in projects – has been used in Vuuch for notification and to permit replies to be added to activities. In Vuuch 4.5, the email format and text has been streamlined to make it easier to tell at a glance which part of the project the message relates to.

Vuuch pages – the social collector of things the team cares about during a project – can now be archived. Vuuch 4.5 page archiving allows the team to avoid visual clutter while permitting the process improvement from previous projects to be applied to subsequent projects by simply recalling the archived pages.

Vuuch 4.5 can now help users connect with each other across the enterprise by suggesting potential contacts. Based on its understanding of the social nexus – that is, who is working with whom on which products – Vuuch can actually suggest additional users who might help make a product better or resolve an issue faster.

“Social platforms originated based on the recognition that people — customers, employees, business partners, and suppliers — emerge as the most valuable assets to business and require informal, unstructured and easy-to-use communication tools that scale beyond a team for enhanced productivity,” said Sanjeev Pal, research manager, Product, Project and Portfolio Management Solutions,  IDC Manufacturing Insights. “To realize the real benefits of social computing, PLM end users need to adopt a specialized social platform that provides task-oriented, structured innovation and follows the various processes involved in the life-cycle management process.”

Pricing, availability and supported systems
Vuuch is available as an annual subscription. Users who create Vuuch pages and activities require a paid license. Other users may update pages and activities without a paid license. Pricing is $300 per year per Vuuch creation subscription.

Vuuch 4.5 runs in the cloud, so there is no installation or setup needed. The Vuuch 4.5 web application supports major browsers, including Microsoft® Internet Explorer®, Mozilla Firefox® and Google® Chrome®. The Vuuch web application also supports Apple® iPhone, iPad and iPod touch mobile browsers. Optional Vuuch add-ins allow team members to access the Vuuch enterprise social system directly from within Microsoft Office® 2007, SpaceClaim™, SolidWorks®, Autodesk® AutoCAD®, Autodesk Inventor® and Pro/ENGINEER®.

About Vuuch
Vuuch (www.vuuch.com), the first enterprise social system (ESS) for manufacturers, is revolutionizing the way products are developed. Vuuch’s social software is the only manufacturing-specific social technology that connects product development teams together with their deliverables, cutting time-to-market and the cost of developing products while improving quality and innovation. Founded in 2009 by a team of CAD and PLM industry veterans, Vuuch’s people-centric PLM capabilities offer manufacturers a new way to improve productivity that is compatible with existing investments in CAD, PLM and desktop applications. Vuuch is privately-held and based in Sudbury, MA.

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Contact:
Alex Neihaus
alex@vuuch.com
+1 617 500 8100 x103

Vuuch is a trademark of SRD Systems, Inc. All other company and product names are the property of their respective owners.