Yesterday Intergraph issued a press release (via email, not yet online) about a major customer (Alcoa) agreeing to standardize on Intergraph Plant Design System, PDS. As I said earlier this month in a posting about AVEVA, I don’t usually report software vendor “wins” unless there’s a back story that piques my interest. This time, what drew my attention is the software in question, not the size of the deal or the buyer.
PDS has been the market leader for years, but is not a true 3D play or even the state of the art from Intergraph, let alone considering the competition. It relies on an outdated third-party CAD engine (Bentley’s MicroStation V7, formerly known as MicroStation/J—but we won’t go into a revisionist history lesson right now). So why make a big deal out of a five-year standardization agreement?
Complete article: Why Intergraph Still Cares About PDS.