PTC

Last Updated: 18th September 2020
Analyst Coverage: David Norfolk and Simon Holloway

PTC, Inc. is a U.S. computer software company specialising in design visualisation, product lifecycle management, and service management software. It began in the world of 2D and 3D CAD but judicious acquisitions have taken it into PLM and software development. It is building considerable capabilities in building solutions for the Internet of Things.

PTC solutions now encompass Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Business Process Management, where its Windchill software is a market leader; Computer Aided Design (CAD); Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and software delivery, with its acquisitions of MKS and, recently, Atego; Supply Chain Management (SCM); and Service Lifecycle Management (SLM).

PTC is a global company with offices in some 28 countries world-wide, including Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, the Peoples Republic of China, and the UK. It claims to have some 28,000 customers worldwide. Its current CEO is Jim Heppelmann.

It was founded in 1985 and launched Pro/ENGINEER (parametric, associative feature-based, solid modeling software) in 1988; John Deere was its first customer. It IPO’d in 1989 and was added to the S&P 500 in 1997. Amongst many other acquisitions, it acquired MKS and its Software System Lifecycle Management (SSLM) solution in 2011 and ThingWorx, “the first platform designed to efficiently build and run the applications of today’s connected world” (i.e. the Internet of Things or IoT) in 2014.

PTC’s own Fast Facts sheet is here.