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Services fuel growth, while vendors simplify product offerings
Of all the product life-cycle management (PLM) trends discussed at CIMdata's PLM conference held June 23-25 in Dearborn, Mich., one of the most startling is just how dependent this growing segment has become on services. But is this to be expected, given PLM's scope?
Ken Amann, director of research for CIMdata, an Ann Arbor, Mich.-based analyst firm, says services fueled most of the 8-percent growth in the collaborative Product Definition Management portion of the PLM market last year. As the PLM concept has expanded to include more applications and greater intercompany collaboration, he says, enterprises deploying PLM software have spent...