Former HP Exec Milton Lands At UGS
Milton, who officially starts Oct. 1, said one of his primary responsibilities at UGS, a high-profile spin-off of systems integration giant EDS, will be expanding alliances with systems integrators and services partners.
"Since UGS is no longer a captive to EDS, that allows for a broadening of relationships with systems integrators and services providers," said Milton, noting it was still too early to provide details on UGS' partner push. UGS has a broad range of 3-D CAD/CAM products aimed at providing a complete solution with a single data repository for everything from product design to supply chain software for managing manufacturing and billable materials.
Investment firms Bain Capital, Silver Lake Partners and Warburg Pincus purchased UGS from EDS in March for $2.05 billion in cash. UGS says the deal, in which each firm is an equal investor, represents the largest private equity investment ever made in a technology company.
Milton compared the emerging product life-cycle management (PLM) opportunity to the one ERP software vendors enjoyed more than a decade ago as that market took off. For VARs, there are opportunities selling and integrating specific UGS CAD/CAM products and selling a full suite of UGS PLM products and services, Milton said. "VARs have an opportunity to take that PLM concept down into smaller companies," he said. "Obviously, companies like Ford, GM and Boeing get it and have been implementing PLM to varying degrees in their environment. But there are a lot of midsize and large companies that have not realized the benefits of PLM."
Palo Alto, Calif.-based HP, with its position in the Unix workstation market, is ironically UGS' largest hardware platform partner, said Milton, who said he had no direct involvement with UGS while he was at HP.
As for whether he will move to expand that HP relationship, Milton said, "If the relationship is going well and there are incremental opportunities for both of us, we certainly want to grow it for sure."
Milton said he has no hard feelings about his HP experience despite his sudden dismissal in August along with two other top HP executives, Peter Blackmore and Kasper Rorsted, by HP Chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina in the wake of a $208 million operating loss for the enterprise server and storage division for the third fiscal quarter ended July 31. The news sent HP shares tumbling 16 percent in one day.
"I have tremendous respect for both HP and Carly," Milton said. "I have learned a lot from Carly over the years. She has had a tremendous challenge in pulling together the largest merger in the IT industry and, by and large, has done an excellent job, pulling off a very successful merger. One setback in one quarter doesn't write the story on what has been and will ultimately be a very successful merger." Milton would not discuss his HP severance package.
Milton, who while at HP was based in Houston, about three and half hours from UGS' headquarters in Plano, Texas, said he is particularly excited about working for an application software vendor. "I was interested in making a move from a predmoninantly hardware and services play at HP into software, especially applications software," he said.
Milton said he was also impressed with UGS' top- flight management team led by UGS Chairman, CEO and President Tony Affuso.