NX 2606 has been renamed Designcenter

[Clacle]

I only noticed when recently installing NX 2606 that Siemens has simplified Designcenter NX to Designcenter, while the cloud version has been renamed Designcenter X. Starting with 2606, Siemens has officially switched to a more unified naming system.

The name did feel a bit unfamiliar when I first saw it. From UG to NX, many people’s working language has long since become fixed: NX modeling, NX drafting, NX programming, NX simulation. In the future, Designcenter will appear more and more often in installation packages, startup screens, and official materials, but in day-to-day conversations, I imagine people will still casually call it NX for quite a long time.
This change is easier to understand when viewed within Siemens’ broader industrial software ecosystem. Designcenter leans more toward design and engineering development; Teamcenter handles product data, BOMs, versions, changes, and process collaboration; Simcenter covers validation work such as structural, fluid, motion, and system simulation; Opcenter is closer to manufacturing execution and on-site production operations. These software suites were never isolated from one another in the first place; now the branding and product messaging simply place more emphasis on a systematic ecosystem.
For people doing product development, the ideal state is this: complete part and assembly design in Designcenter, manage drawings, BOMs, and version changes through Teamcenter, use Simcenter for structural or fluid validation, and then gradually pass the confirmed data to the manufacturing side, connecting it with systems such as Opcenter. In practice, different companies implement these systems to different depths, but connecting “design, validation, data, and manufacturing” is indeed the direction for future development.
Beyond the name change, this update should also include functional adjustments. There is quite a lot involved across different modules, and the design, manufacturing, collaboration, and cloud capabilities are all worth taking time to look at. I’m still continuing to try it out and organize my thoughts, especially to see whether 2606 brings features in modeling efficiency, assembly operations, drafting details, CAM, simulation, and Teamcenter collaboration that can genuinely improve day-to-day work, rather than just changes at the interface or marketing level.

[Sbadakesi]

I’ve been using NX since version 4.0, so this name change does feel pretty meaningful.
When I first started using it, most people were still more used to calling it UG. Back then, the software wasn’t exactly user-friendly, and hardware wasn’t nearly as generous as it is now. Loading a large assembly or generating a complex engineering drawing meant waiting patiently. But its capabilities in complex surfaces, assemblies, molds, and machining were genuinely impressive.
Later, from NX 5 and NX 6 up to today, the feature set kept growing, and the interface kept changing too. In the past, it was already good enough if the design department could manage 3D, 2D, and machining data properly. Now you also have to consider Teamcenter versions and changes, Simcenter analysis and validation, and integration with manufacturing-side systems. What designers do is actually much closer than before to the full product development process.
So I think calling it Designcenter is understandable too. Siemens wants to convey that it’s no longer just a CAD program, but a whole set of design and development capabilities. It’s just that for old users like us, we probably still won’t be able to change what we call it. In the future, when we see Designcenter, our first reaction will probably still be: isn’t this just NX?

[Max]

Seeing the 2606 rename, my first reaction was also one of reflection. From UG to NX and now to Designcenter, Siemens clearly wants to turn CAD from a standalone tool into a standard node in the digital twin chain.

As a longtime user, I’m not worried about getting used to the new name; I care more about stability after this “systematized” transformation. In the past, what I feared most was large assemblies crashing or drawing annotations disappearing. If the rename can make collaboration between Designcenter and Teamcenter smoother, and version changes no longer lag, then the new name has real value.

I’m also especially looking forward to meaningful improvements in modeling efficiency and CAM details in 2606. Development cycles are under too much pressure now. If this is just a UI refresh with no real substance, longtime users will probably still treat it as “NX with a new name.”

[Realtom]

In the early days, what people commonly called UG stood for Unigraphics. Later, the product entered the NX era, with common versions including NX 4, NX 5, NX 6, NX 7.5, NX 8, NX 8.5, NX 9, NX 10, NX 11, and NX 12, though many longtime users still call it UG today.
Later still, the version naming changed to a year-and-month format, such as NX 1847, NX 1872, NX 1899, NX 1926, NX 1953, NX 1980, NX 2007, NX 2206, NX 2212, NX 2306, NX 2312, NX 2406, NX 2412, NX 2506, and NX 2512.
By 2606, the official naming was adjusted further: the former Designcenter NX was simplified to Designcenter, while the cloud version Designcenter X NX was renamed Designcenter X. So the Designcenter 2606 you see now is essentially a continuation of NX 2606.
From UG and UG NX to NX and now Designcenter, the name has kept changing, but this product line has never been discontinued. If you look for UG in older materials, and NX or Designcenter in newer materials, they generally refer to the same lineage.

[Realtom]

Because 1847 is the year Siemens was founded. After NX 12, NX did not continue numbering releases as NX 13, NX 14, and so on. Instead, in 2019 it adopted a continuous release model, and the first series was named NX 1847.