PTC SMB Travelogue, Day 3

Wed 18 Jan 9:00am: Even if you’re not at the PTC SMB MAD (media and analyst day), interesting stuff is happening online. Randall Newton of AECnews.com is here, but online he exposes his barring from Darateck. Roopinder Tara of Tenlinks.com is here, but online he calls Pro/Engineer Wildfire “Wildflower.” (When I told him there was a spelling mistake in the first line of his blog entry, he spent a long time staring at the screen before the error popped out at him.) We journalists are never wrong, of course, so he figured he could sell the name to PTC. I originally called Windchill “Wildfire” in my blog entry of yesterday.

As reported elsewhere, financial analysts had flocked to this event, hoping to get pre-knowledge of PTC's financial picture, info that is due to be released next week. They got nada, other than frequent statements from PTC executives and pr staff that nothing would be revealed. Nothing. To the point that any person who asked a financial question would be punished. NOTHING!

During dinner last night with a financial analyst, he reported that he had been watching body language. The CTO looked the most relaxed he'd ever been. The CEO was upbeat, grinning from ear to ear, and even did a little dance. That told the analyst all he needed to know. He figures the share price is going up. “Is this insider info?” I asked excitedly. No; he had already posted his call earlier in the day. “It’s a simple matter of multiplying their P/E [price-earnings ration] by future revenue.” I suppose this all means that PTC might be announcing they exceeded a billion in revenues a year ahead of schedule.

There is a rumour that PTC will drop the Wildfire name, which was just a code name originally. A MathCAD announcement will be made later in the day.

We’re now on the verge of starting day 2.

Comments

[Edwin Muirhead]

Hi Ralph,
I've heard a lot worse than Wildflower... however I reckon PTC will keep the name for now, it certainly seems to have replaced "Pro/ENGINEER" for a lot of their employees, though I still see Wildfire as a release name (like Windows XP as opposed to Windows Vista)

Look forward to the Mathcad announcement, if it's going to be anything worth hearing...? I was in the bowels of the PTC HQ talking to Mathcad folks, and they didn't seem to be hiding any big news...

Hopefully PTC will listen to their customers and improve the upgrade path + options for Pro/E + Intralink users... and also clarify things among their people
[see post @ http://cadmincouk.blogspot.com/2007/01/ptc-media-webcast.html ]
Thanks for your work here, it's always worth reading.
Edwin