Industrial Automation Software
The Industrial Software Stack
From the machine upward: what each layer does, who owns it, and how the economics change with distance from the factory floor.
Software vs Hardware Economics
Trailing twelve month operating margins for a software and vision cohort against a hardware cohort. The roughly 20 point gap is why every large vendor has been buying software.
The Software Convergence M&A Wave
How the hardware incumbents bought their way up the stack, from Siemens and Mentor Graphics in 2017 to the Altair and AspenTech deals completed in 2025.
Siemens: Mentor Graphics
- Year:
- 2017
- Value:
- about $4.5B
- Layer bought:
- Design and simulation
- Note:
- Electronic design automation, folded into Siemens Digital Industries Software
Schneider Electric: AVEVA (majority)
- Year:
- 2018
- Value:
- combination with Schneider software
- Layer bought:
- SCADA and operations
- Note:
- Schneider contributed its industrial software business for a majority stake
Rockwell Automation: Plex Systems
- Year:
- 2021
- Value:
- about $2.22B
- Layer bought:
- MES and MOM
- Note:
- Cloud MES, Rockwell's largest software acquisition
Emerson: AspenTech (majority)
- Year:
- 2022
- Value:
- about $6B plus contributed businesses
- Layer bought:
- Operations and asset performance
- Note:
- Emerson took roughly 55 percent of a combined AspenTech
Schneider Electric: AVEVA (remaining stake)
- Year:
- 2023
- Value:
- about GBP 9.5B enterprise value
- Layer bought:
- SCADA and operations
- Note:
- Took AVEVA fully private, removing the last listed SCADA pure play
Siemens: Altair Engineering
- Year:
- 2025
- Value:
- about $10B
- Layer bought:
- Design and simulation
- Note:
- Simulation and data analytics; Siemens' largest software deal
Emerson: AspenTech (remaining stake)
- Year:
- 2025
- Value:
- about $7.2B for the minority
- Layer bought:
- Operations and asset performance
- Note:
- Completed March 2025 at $265 per share, taking AspenTech private; Emerson held about 57 percent beforehand
Schneider Electric: PTC
- Year:
- 2026
- Value:
- about $22.6B equity ($23.7B enterprise value)
- Layer bought:
- Product design, engineering and data management
- Note:
- Announced 5 Oct 2026: $205 per share in cash, a 42.3 percent premium to PTC's last close. Closing anticipated by Q3 2027 subject to PTC shareholder and regulatory approvals
| Year | Acquirer | Target | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Siemens | Mentor Graphics | about $4.5B |
| 2018 | Schneider Electric | AVEVA (majority) | combination with Schneider software |
| 2021 | Rockwell Automation | Plex Systems | about $2.22B |
| 2022 | Emerson | AspenTech (majority) | about $6B plus contributed businesses |
| 2023 | Schneider Electric | AVEVA (remaining stake) | about GBP 9.5B enterprise value |
| 2025 | Siemens | Altair Engineering | about $10B |
| 2025 | Emerson | AspenTech (remaining stake) | about $7.2B for the minority |
| 2026 | Schneider Electric | PTC | about $22.6B equity ($23.7B enterprise value) |
Industrial Software Franchise Scale
How large the named software books are, in dollars for the bar. PTC and Bentley are ARR; Siemens is recognized software revenue; Rockwell Software and Control is a reporting segment, not a pure software stock.
Siemens Digital Industries: Automation vs Software
Digital Industries total minus the disclosed software line. Software is the smaller slice; implied automation is the rest. Altair sits inside the software book from the 2025 close.
Rockwell Automation Segment Sales
Fiscal 2023 to 2025. Software and Control is controllers plus software, not ARR. Total company sales were 8.34 billion dollars in fiscal 2025 after the 2024 destock.
Industrial software annual recurring revenue growth
Latest disclosed ARR growth rates. Definitions differ by vendor, so the comparable signal is the growth rate, not the dollar stock. AVEVA led this cut at 12 percent.
Emerson Intelligent Devices vs Software
Quarterly split of the two named segments. Software's share of the pair was about 38 percent in 2026-Q2. The step up from about 30 percent comes from Emerson's late-2025 resegmentation, which narrowed Intelligent Devices, not from a change in mix. This is reported segment sales, not ARR.