Foreword

Dear friends,

On 29 May - 2 June, in Novosibirsk Scientific Center (Akademgorodok) will be held, under the slogan "PLM+ERP: Informational Environment of Modern Enterprise" The Second Forum of the isicad Community...

PLM and ERP are actively and successfully developed in the market, however these domains still have not been fully appreciated by society. They are still being shaped, they highly need users feedback, and they should be strongly supported by science and technology. Also those domains would benefit from more promotion by mass media and understanding by state agencies and society. That is why bringing together representatives of all parties interested in use, delivery, development, and promotion of PLM and ERP is so important and useful.

Broad representation of the most important sectors of the market was approved by isicad-2004 (see isicad.ru/2004/ru/, cadcamcae.lv, and isicad.ru/ru/), with more than 100 participants representing the world and Russian leaders of the PLM market, a lot of industrial enterprises, well-known research centers, and others. The isicad-2004 forum was given a high appraisal as the event that provided to all participants good opportunities for broad, efficient and systemic consideration of topical problems and establishing contacts in a truly friendly atmosphere.

PLM and ERP are the most important and mutually complementary components of informational environment of a modern enterprise. The isicad-2006 forum is going not only to present the best solutions in these domains but pay special attention to their systemic integration, which currently becomes topical and attractive direction of IT both for solution providers and customers.

One of the main goals of isicad-2006 is to give people from industry an opportunity to learn about the main current and future solutions directly from the presentations given by the leading providers and compare their advantages, to understand more about integrative solutions, and to get information about the newest offers, purchasing data, training opportunities, and other.

Analysts believe that future progress in such science-intensive domains as PLM and ERP will depend more and more on the investments into research and innovations. Intensive contacts between scientists and designers of new solutions will therefore facilitate accelerated application of research findings into software development practice and also will enable to more precisely formulate new research topics in order to meet the market demands.

More information about aims of the Forum, its structure, conditions, and other related topics can be found in other sections of this web site, which will be regularly updated.

Most of the isicad-2004 active attendees, including representatives of the leading world and Russian solution providers, have confirmed their willingness to participate in isicad-2006. I am also happy to note that a list of new potential attendees is constantly extending thanks to bright persons and companies that will undoubtedly contribute to the development of isicad. I believe that all actual and potential participants of the Forum are directly or indirectly its actual organizers. I thank all of you and will be glad to have all kinds of further contacts.

I am looking forward to meeting you in Novosibirsk in May, 2006.