Heavyweight collaboration through lightweight JT: the ability to visualize design data of various types across platforms is now possible through a file format named "JT." What's more, the file sizes are but a fraction of what's ordinarily been the case. This could be a tremendous boost for those who are looking for more collaborative processes

Automotive Design & Production, March, 2004 by Lawrence S. Gould

Given the sheer number of potential users, vendors, and applications benefiting from JT, the file format could easily become the de facto standard for visualization and collaboration. "We're not creating an industry standard in the likeness of STEP or IGES," Kelley politely points out. STEP and IGES are open, published formats that belong to various standards bodies responsible for those formats. With JT, "there is one ultimate owner of decisions and one party responsible for implementation--and that's us."

This product/standards model is not unique. Remember the aforementioned Adobe PDF? Again, JT and PDF solve very different data transfer problems; however, the analogy fits. PDF is ubiquitous, PDF readers (Adobe Acrobat) exist for all platforms, PDF files can be written from a variety of applications, and both plug-ins and applications to create and manipulate PDF files are readily available. But, concludes Kelley, "the IP and technology is owned and managed by one company--Adobe Systems."

Prior to JT Open, UGS was licensing JT on a per-seat royalty basis. This was relatively expensive, compared to the approach JT Open is now taking: a flat fee. JT Open members can incorporate JT and sell it to other members royalty free (no added incremental cost). "JT Open is like a buying club," explains Kelley. "Once you get in, you're free to trade [JT technology] between members." Fees to JT Open cover the related administrative costs for managing JT technology. (UGS makes money by creating a bigger market for JT.) The one-time membership fees are on a sliding scale based on the size of the member company ($4,500 to $90,000 for corporate members; $22,000 to $90,000 for vendor members). Add to this an annual maintenance fee.

AN OBVIOUS SELL

PTC (Needham, MA), which sells Pro/Engineer, is a vendor member of JT Open. By using JT, explains Michael Rygol, PTC's senior director of visualization product management, PTC is letting its customers interact with JT files coming from EDS users. "We will still develop our own file formats because we have technical and commercial advantages in maintaining the data in our own formats."

Another vendor member is CIMx (Cincinnati, OH). Explains Rick Franzosa, vice president, sales and marketing, for CIMx, CIMx has a "lot of large customers who are also large EDS users" (the largest being GE Aircraft Engines). As CIMx manufacturing management applications expand to include shop floor activities and software systems, which is on the docket this year, the CIMx applications will need to "communicate effectively on the manufacturing side. JT Open would provide us with a conduit to the design information our users have." Right now, CIMx has that conduit as "onesies," Franzosa's word for a one-off, customized applications developed by CIMx for each CIMx customer and application requiring data interoperability. The idea, he continues, "is to make that conduit institutionalized so we have only one way of deploying it regardless of the UGS or CIMx customer. In the case of a company our size, somebody has to have the big lever to make that happen."