Applicon
Applicon was one of the earliest commercial CAD/CAM software companies, founded in 1969 in Burlington, Massachusetts by a group of MIT alumni. Applicon's BRAVO product family ran on minicomputer-class hardware and was used in aerospace, automotive, and electronics manufacturing through the 1970s and 1980s. The company was acquired by Schlumberger in 1981 and ultimately exited the standalone CAD market in the 1990s, with several Applicon engineers going on to found later Boston CAD companies.
Why it matters
Applicon, alongside Computervision, is the second of the two original 1969 Boston CAD anchors — the proof that Route 128 was a viable CAD/CAM origin point a decade before PTC was founded. The Applicon talent diaspora seeded multiple later CAD and PDM ventures in the region, which is the structural reason the Boston corridor produced so many CAD/PLM companies in subsequent decades.
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Cite this definition
Finocchiaro, Michael. “Applicon.” DemystifyingPLM PLM Glossary, 2026, https://www.demystifyingplm.com/glossary/applicon