BigLever Software, the leading provider of systems and software product line engineering (PLE) solutions, announced today the release of Gears 7.0, a new version of the company’s industry-standard PLE Lifecycle Framework. With the release of Gears 7.0, BigLever is establishing an open industry ecosystem of world-class tool providers – including developers of commercial, open source, customized, integrated or proprietary Application Lifecycle Management and Product Lifecycle Management tools – to further catalyze the proliferation of PLE. The centerpiece of Gears 7.0 is a new API, the PLE Bridge API, that enables engineering tool makers to become part of the PLE ecosystem by making their tools “product line aware” and thereby ready to be included in the unified PLE solutions used by their customers or user communities.
 
Companies across a spectrum of industries are leveraging the power of PLE to change the fundamentals of how they create, evolve, deliver and compete with their product lines. Leading aerospace & defense and automotive companies are using PLE approaches and BigLever’s Gears PLE Lifecycle Framework as the technology foundation for highly successful mega-scale PLE deployments. The deployments in these sectors are driving the expansion of PLE across other industries, such as consumer electronics, medical, computer systems, telecom, alternative energy and e-commerce.
 
“The product lifecycle is in need of a ‘Switzerland’ where content and artifacts can be exchanged at a high level across tools and engineering disciplines. By publishing an API, BigLever is opening an important back channel for sharing high level artifacts at the product family level,” said Tony Baer, principal analyst for Ovum.
 
“As PLE has ‘crossed he chasm’ from a niche approach into mainstream practice in the systems and software engineering industry, we have seen the demand for tool integrations with the Gears PLE Framework skyrocket,” said Dr. Charles Krueger, CEO of BigLever Software. “The PLE Bridge API opens up an exciting new PLE ecosystem of partners, vendors, customers and integrators to meet this demand and to enable any and all engineering tool makers to join the PLE revolution.”