Evolution of Siemens PLM from UGS: 1963–2007 The first commercial product developed by what is now known as Siemens PLM Software was called UNIAPT, released in 1969 by a software company then called
United Computing. UNIAPT was one of the world's first end-user
CAM products. United Computing was founded in 1963 above a hair salon in
Torrance, California, and went on to purchase the Automated Drafting and Machining (ADAM) software code from MCS in 1973. The code became a foundation for a product called UNI-GRAPHICS, later sold commercially in 1975 as Unigraphics. The following year, United Computing was acquired by the aerospace company
McDonnell Douglas (now part of
Boeing), who created new CAD/CAM divisions, naming one the Unigraphics Group. Finally, in 1980, Unigraphics was released, marking the group's first
true 3D modeling hardware and software offering. In 2003 UGS also received a perpetual, royalty-free license to the MSC
Nastran source code. UGS, SDRC, and Nastran were merged into a single Line of Business (LOB) named EDS
PLM Solutions. In 2004, EDS sold its EDS PLM Solutions business to the private equity group of
Bain Capital,
Silver Lake Partners, and
Warburg Pincus. The company resumed operating under the UGS name following the private equity sale. In 2005, UGS purchased
Tecnomatix Technologies Ltd.
Helmuth Ludwig was appointed president and worked with the management team on creating a long-term strategic direction.
Siemens PLM: 2007–2019 The 2007 acquisition of UGS laid the foundation for the
Strategic business unit of
Siemens Industry Automation division -
Siemens PLM Software. The entire operations of UGS were amalgamated into Siemens Automation & Drives group as Siemens PLM Software. In October 2008, to expand its portfolio, Siemens acquired
Schwelm based 'Innotec GmbH' - an international vendor of digital engineering software and services for the process industry, and known for its COMOS platform. On November 9, 2011, Siemens announced the acquisition of 'Vistagy, Inc.' - a Massachusetts-based supplier of specialized engineering software and services with emphasis on designing and manufacturing structures made of advanced composite materials. The Siemens Industry Automation Division has acquired the software companies UGS (USA, 2007), Innotec (Germany, 2008), Elan Software Systems (France, 2009), Active Tecnologia em Sistemas de Automação (Brazil, 2011),
Vistagy (USA, 2011), IBS AG (Germany, 2012), Perfect Costing Solutions GmbH (Germany, 2012), VRcontext International S.A. (Belgium, 2012), and LMS International (Belgium, 2012). In December 2013, in order to enhance its portfolio in the field of PLM-ERP integration and provide platform for integration with
enterprise resource planning systems (such as SAP, Oracle and other enterprise applications such as MES, CRM and SCM), Siemens Industry Software Gmbh & Co. KG acquired Munich based TESIS PLMware Gmbh, in the field of PLM integration software and services. In January 2016, Siemens announced its intention to acquire
CD-adapco for US$970 million. In October 2016, Tony Hemmelgarn became president and CEO (his previous position was executive vice president for global sales, marketing and service delivery). Previous president and CEO, Chuck Grindstaff, became Executive Chairman (earlier Grindstaff was appointed CEO of Siemens PLM in 2010, when he succeeded the former leader, Tony Affuso). In November 2016, Siemens announced plans to acquire
EDA company
Mentor Graphics for $4.5 billion to incorporate electronics
integrated circuit and systems design, simulation, and manufacturing solutions into its portfolio. On October 1, 2018, Siemens announced it had acquired
Low-code development platform software company
Mendix to enable it to create SaaS solutions based on the Mendix platform.
Siemens Digital Industries Software: 2019-current Announced on September 4, 2019, it was announced at the Siemens Media & Analyst Conference that the formal name of the company changed from Siemens PLM Software to Siemens Digital Industries Software. In January 2021, the legal merger of Mentor Graphics with Siemens was completed - merging into the
Siemens Industry Software Inc legal entity. Mentor Graphics' name was changed to
Siemens EDA, a division of Siemens Digital Industries Software. In November 2022, it was announced Siemens Digital Industries Software had acquired the
Tewksbury, Massachusetts-headquartered simulation-independent verification IP supplier, Avery Design Systems. In 2023, Siemens Digital Industries Software was listed by the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar as being among the companies that had assisted the weapons production of Myanmar's military junta and could be at risk of being complicit in its violation of human rights. In 2025, Siemens acquired
Altair Engineering for $10 billion, integrating the company into its Digital Industries division. ==Products== Siemens Digital Industries Software products include the former Siemens PLM product lines which include CAD software like
NX, a
CAD/
CAM/
CAE commercial software suite,
Teamcenter, an integrated set of
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and collaboration (
cPD) tools,
Tecnomatix, a manufacturing and factory planning suite and Velocity Series, an application bundle focused at the mid-market that includes
Solid Edge. The company's portfolio also contained
NX I-deas,
NX Nastran,
Solid Edge, Imageware,
Tecnomatix,
Femap, Simcenter 3D,
Simcenter Amesim,
Simcenter Flomaster, Simcenter FLOEFD,
Simcenter STAR-CCM+, Simcenter Culgi, and
Parasolid. Siemens DISW offers the Mendix
Low-code development platform. The Mendix Platform is designed to accelerate enterprise app delivery across the entire
Systems development life cycle, from ideation to deployment and operations. With the acquisition of Mentor Graphics (now Siemens EDA), the product portfolio expanded significantly to include all of the Mentor product lines which includes: • the Calibre product line for IC Physical Verification and Design for Manufacturing • the Tessent product line for Silicon Test and Yield Analysis • the Veloce product line for Hardware Assisted Verification • the Questa product line for digital simulation and verification and formal verification • Analog and AMS solutions including AFS, AFS Symphony, Solido, and Eldo • PCB layout and design tools such as PADS, Xpedition, HyperLynx and Valor NPI • as well as solutions for IC design and layout, High Level Synthesis, Power Analysis, IC Place & Route, and other areas
Software components As of 2023 3D Software Development components provided by Siemens included different PLM tools: • D-Cubed (used by Bentley (AEC),
Vero (CAM), Altair (
CAE),
Onshape (CAD), and
Solid Edge (CAD)) •
JT file format, • PLM Vis, • PLM XML ==See also==