This commentary shows how collaborative product development supports shared decision making through improved communications across the extended enterprise.

This commentary looks at the role of innovation in a PLM environment. Fostering innovation requires an environment that supports access to information, the ability to view and interpret that information, knowledge management, and collaboration on that information to maximize the use of as much knowledge and talent as possible across the enterprise.

This commentary looks at solutions that are commercially available to support collaboration including synchronous meeting solutions, co-modeling systems, visualization software, digital mockup, and many others.

This commentary takes a look at the definition of collaboration from the perspective of the CAD user community.

Commentary reviews Siemens AG's intent to acquire the UGS Corporation for US $3.515 billion.

This commentary looks at how documents are managed. Managing documents includes capturing them, categorizing them using meta-data information, placing them in secure repositories, providing search mechanisms and schemes, and providing access to documents based on a user’s role and authorizations.

Commentary discusses isicad 2006, which was held 31 May–2 June in Akademgorodok, Novosibirsk, Russia to provide a forum for Siberia-based Russian companies to learn more about PLM and to share experiences with those who have already begun adopting PLM solutions and technologies.

Commentary looks at the impact of product design cost estimating (PDCE) on determining if a product should be built.

Commentary looks at how Eurostep brings standards-based support to systems integration using commercial software as well as custom-made solutions.