Last week, we announced a $40M investment from Silver Lake and GE. I wanted to take a moment to share my thoughts about what it means for our company and for our community.
First and foremost, we are using the funding to do what our community of subscribers and open users want us to - respond to their ideas and feature requests, add more and more functionality and apps, and continue our approach that has redefined conceptions of PLM. This investment will help us do more for our user community - and do it faster.
We remain fully committed to our open approach. The investment from Silver Lake and GE does not change our focus on open community, our freely available software, our straight-forward pricing, or our subscription model that packs in as much as possible.
Silver Lake and GE recognized the power of our model – and the significance for the market: Nowhere else can you download PLM software, evaluate it, and even influence the roadmap, without paying anything. The result is a PLM experience built on collaboration and openness that the industry is strongly welcoming.
I encourage you to engage with our community and exchange ideas. Many of you face the same challenges managing product development and processes. We believe in the power of a large international community of PLM practitioners working together to solve the most challenging problems. We welcome your participation.
We believe there's a different way of doing PLM than companies have been forced to in the past - and there's no barrier for you to download Aras and create the unique PLM experience that you want.
Sincerely,
Peter Schroer
CEO & Founder, Aras