CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
5 January 2005
Implementation Investments
Rapid Deployment of On-Demand Product Lifecycle Management Means Greater ROI for Customers of Arena Solutions
Arena Solutions, Inc . announced four customer deployments that showcase the advantages of rapid implementation through the on-demand service model. The customers, AgileTV, Data Domain, Dust Networks and Hammerhead Systems, were able to move their development teams and product data onto Arena in a matter of days, realizing immediate process improvements and faster returns on their investments. These deployments highlight the inherent benefits of Arena's on-demand model, freeing manufacturers from the far lengthier, difficult and costly implementations client/server-based PLM solutions require.
Because Arena's on-demand PLM service requires no infrastructure or software installations by the customer, companies quickly achieve new levels of efficiency and collaboration across their entire design-through- manufacturing organization, including outsourced partners and suppliers. By accessing Arena PLM through a standard web browser, global teams instantly and securely begin collaborating and sharing a single real-time record of product information. As a result, Arena customers achieve a faster time to market and lower cost of product development, as well as a reduced cost of implementation and ownership.
Arena PLM's low-risk on-demand model for product development and manufacturing companies of all sizes has made Arena the fastest-growing PLM solution provider in the marketplace, attracting record numbers of new customers every quarter.
AgileTV, a pioneering developer of next-generation, speech-enabled home entertainment systems, needed a powerful PLM solution to manage product information and development processes across its entire offering, including remote controls, infrared receivers, communications equipment, software, and servers. AgileTV's product allows cable television subscribers to use voice commands to select from the hundreds of channels and thousands of movies available on digital cable. Product lifecycle management is key to the company's ability to deliver their system to customers.
"We selected Arena Solutions as our PLM vendor of choice after spending several months evaluating a variety of offerings based on features such as ease-of-use, ease-of-deployment, and total cost of ownership," said David Chaiken, chief technology officer of AgileTV Corporation. "Arena PLM is affordable and we were able to start using it-getting the benefits of PLM control of our products-within a very short period of time."
Data Domain, a leader in enterprise data protection solutions, was challenged with information complexity and data sharing issues across project teams, especially in working with outsourced suppliers on a daily basis, and needed a PLM solution for real-time and effective collaboration. Arena Solutions provided rapid deployment and was also extremely easy to use and manage.
"As an emerging company, our success is dependent on our ability to execute on two fronts-rapid product development and cash management. Arena has helped us with both.
"By providing a single, centralized database for managing product data, all our suppliers access the same up-to-date data from Arena, guaranteeing consistency of information. All changes are put through a review board, so our partners have appropriate visibility to pending changes. In some cases, they have provided feedback that helped us avoid making unnecessary and costly changes.
"With Arena's pay-per-use subscription model, we have avoided the large cash outlay traditionally associated with client/server software. Because the architecture is Web based, we also avoid any IT and administrator investment. This has allowed us to maintain a lean organization and focus on what we do best-product development. The ability to include product costs in our BOMs has also sensitized our engineers to the impact of their design choices," said David Sangster, vice president of operations of Data Domain.
"We also plan to use Arena as the framework for our ISO certification initiative this year," added Sangster.
Venture-backed Dust Networks was on the lookout for a full-featured and easy-to-use solution that they could deploy within a day. "Arena provided us with all the functionality we needed at a fraction of the cost we expected. We turned it on and were using it the next day with no issues and zero learning curve," said Tod Dykstra, co-founder and vice president of operations of Dust Networks. "Arena's solution is perfect for early stage, rapid growth companies who want stable, high quality controls without a massive up-front investment."
Hammerhead Systems, a market leader in Aggregation, Interworking and Migration solutions for Telecom Service Providers, was drawn to Arena primarily because of Arena's on-demand model. In order to accelerate their time-to-market, they needed a solution that was affordable, reliable, usable and rapidly deployable.
"Arena Solutions' PLM solution satisfies our need for a full featured tool set and a pay-as-you-go on-demand service model. Effective PLM capability was one of my most critical 'first-investments' in building and solidifying our operations. The feature-set, reliability, usability and customer support provided by Arena were instrumental in driving our deployment of their PLM product. Arena's PLM helps deliver products to our engineering group as well as our customer base," said Russ Woodmansee, director of operations of Hammerhead Systems. "We consider variable cost model resource investments wherever we can, in order to control expenditure while maximizing productivity. Arena's PLM offering is a great example of that. I brought up our PLM capability at one-fifth the cost of other non-hosted PLM products, and that too, in a very short timeframe."
"In today's financial environment where 'quick-to-market' is a business imperative, it is more important than ever for both small and large companies to improve their top and bottom lines by effectively managing their product lifecycle and choosing solutions that will provide the highest returns," said Eric Larkin, chief technology officer of Arena Solutions, Inc. "Arena is the only company to deliver a true on-demand PLM solution built specifically to automate the entire product lifecycle, from strategic management of the product portfolio, collaboration with suppliers to individual team member execution of all product deliverables. We have designed our application to be not only robust and secure, but also such that it is very easy to use and quick to deploy. The result is that our customers experience rapid ROI and significantly improve their ability to get the right products to market faster."
AgileTV Corporation (AgileTV) is the innovator and premier provider of advanced voice recognition services developed specifically for the cable television industry. AgileTV's technology delivers the easiest way for viewers to quickly find and enjoy the ever-increasing amount of programming on digital cable. Through intuitive voice commands, subscribers can navigate effortlessly within cable's vast selection of viewing choices including television programming, integrated guides and on-demand listings. AgileTV is a privately held company headquartered in Menlo Park, California in the heart of the Silicon Valley.
Data Domain offers reliable, cost-effective data restoration solutions that enable enterprise customers to more easily manage enterprise data. The Data Domain solutions integrate with industry-leading backup software applications and were designed from the ground up to optimize data protection. For more information on Data Domain products, visit http://www.datadomain.com .
Dust NetworksT provides low-power wireless mesh networking systems to solution providers, integrators and OEMs for enterprise-class monitoring and control applications. Dust Networks' SmartMeshT combines sophisticated mesh networking software and low-power wireless nodes to provide reliability, manageability and ease of implementation. SmartMesh enables access to information about the physical world, allowing companies to monitor and control processes and systems for increased efficiency and enhanced profitability. For more information on Dust Networks, visit http://www.dust-networks.com
Hammerhead Systems, Inc. is the market leader in Aggregation, Interworking and Migration solutions to accelerate profitable delivery of new Ethernet and existing legacy services at a fraction of the cost and complexity. The HSX 6000, the first purpose-built Layer 2.5 Aggregation Switch using PseudoWire and Dry Martini technologies, and the Pegador Network Management System are both available today. Hammerhead has a strategic partnership with Fujitsu Network Communications in North America for distribution, joint marketing, product planning, and customer support and services. Hammerhead is located in Mountain View, California, is privately held, and has secured $43 million in funding from Foundation Capital, Mayfield, Enterprise Partners, Pequot Ventures and Lighthouse Capital. For more information about Hammerhead, visit http://www.hammerheadsystems.com .
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