Parametric Technology Corporation

Infobox Company
company_name = Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC)
company_
company_type = Public (nasdaq|PMTC)
foundation = 1985
location = Needham, Massachusetts
key_people = C. Richard Harrison, CEO
industry = CAD/CAE/CAM/ECM Software
products = PLM See complete products listing.
revenue = 941.3M million USD (2007)
num_employees = 4,449 (2007)
homepage = [http://www.ptc.com/ www.ptc.com]

Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC)(NASDAQ|PMTC) provides Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) engineering CAD/CAM software and content management and dynamic publishing solutions to more than 50,000 companies worldwide. PTC customers include companies in manufacturing, publishing, services, government and life sciences industries. PTC was a member of the S&P 500 Index through the end of 2006, when it instead became listed in the S&P Midcap 400. It is also in the Russell 2000 index.

Portfolio

PTC has six core product families – Pro/ENGINEER,Windchill, Arbortext, Mathcad, ProductView, IsoDraw and CoCreate.

What began as hardware independence for Pro/ENGINEER led to an ongoing commitment to interoperability and open standards for all PTC products. Then, with the introduction of Windchill, PTC became the first to release a pure Internet architecture solution for product data management and collaboration. Today, PTC’s Product Development System combines the core of Pro/ENGINEER and Windchill with the dynamic publishing capabilities of Arbortext and engineering calculation management features of Mathcad into the only integral product development solution available in the world.

History

PTC was founded in 1985, by Samuel Peisakhovich Geisberg, who previously worked at Prime Computer, Computervision (CV) and Applicon. Pro/ENGINEER (a.k.a. Pro/E), the company's first product, shipped in 1988. John Deere became PTC's first customer.

Once an initial version of Pro/ENGINEER was developed, the company received venture capital funding from Charles River Associates and Steve Walske became the CEO.

As a world-leading provider of integral product development, content management and dynamic publishing solutions for discrete manufacturers, PTC has led nearly every major breakthrough in the industry. Pro/ENGINEER was the first commercially successful parametric feature based solid modeler. Through a combination of innovative technology, and no-holds-barred sales tactics, PTC quickly became a major force in the CAD industry. [ [http://www10.edacafe.com/nbc/articles/view_article.php?articleid=209213&page_no=6 Eda & Plm? ] ] Its strong ascent continued unabated until the mid-1990s, when the introduction of Microsoft Windows NT, and the availability of commercial geometric modeling libraries opened the door to a new generation of low-cost competitors.

On December 29, 2006 Standard & Poor's bumped PTC off its S&P 500 Index, and replaced it instead with the newly spun-off natural gas company Spectra Energy Corp. (nyse2|SE). Parametric then bumped Pier 1 Imports Inc. (nyse2|PIR), a retailer of home furnishings, down one spot and off the bottom of the S&P MidCap 400 Index. [http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/sp-500-adding-spectra-energy/story.aspx?guid=%7B7606FFA6-0B5A-48C4-8492-5915370C243E%7D S&P changes makeup of indexes, Spectra set to become index component] , By Ana Campoy, MarketWatch, Dec 20, 2006]

Companies acquired by PTC

* Computervision, developers of CADDS in 1998 [http://www.ptc.com/company/milestones.htm]
* Polyplan, Technologies acquired 2005 for Manufacturing Process Management
* Arbortext, developers of Arbortext in 2005 for $190 million [http://www.managingautomation.com/maonline/news/read/PTC_Acquisition_of_Arbortext_Adds_Dynamic_Publishing_to_PLM_Portfolio_8191]
* Mathsoft, developers of Mathcad in April 2006 for $63 million. [http://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/blog/2006/04/ptc_buys_mathso_1.html]
* ITEDO Software GmbH in October 2006 for $17million. ITEDO makes technical drawing software and had 34 employees mainly in Germany and the United States. [http://www.tenlinks.com/news/PR/PTC/101806_itedo.htm]
* NC Graphics in May 2007 for an undisclosed sum. [http://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/blog/2007/05/ptc_acquires_re.html]
* CoCreate in December 2007 for $250 million. [http://investing.reuters.co.uk/news/articleinvesting.aspx?type=media&storyID=nN31308834]

References

External links

* [http://www.ptc.com Parametric Technology Corporation]