This is a true distributed PDM, based on Microsoft's SharePoint Portal Server. The client is completely integrated into Solid Edge 11, so users feel no burden in its use. Insight includes advanced features such as local caching, offline editing, and, if the user chooses to install multiple SharePoint servers, true data redundancy.
The limitations of Insight are that it does not handle heterogenious CAD environments, and does not support downstream (non CAD) users. Still, it is a strong offering that actually seems to work (high praise in the PDM market) , and it will likely be a differentiing factor for Solid Edge over the two big competitors, SolidWorks and Autodesk Inventor.
The client software will be included free in Solid Edge Version 11, however anyone who wants to use it will need to license Microsoft SharePoint, which is $4,000 for the server, and (if I am correct) $70 per client.
While it's certainly possible that SolidWorks and Autodesk will follow suit and do their own SharePoint-based PDM, it's apparently not a trivial task -- the Solid Edge team had 10 programmers working on Insight for a year.
