APPLICATIONS

MSC.Software Corp., the provider of virtual product development (VPD) products including simulation software and services, today announced that Wyle Laboratories has purchased an MSC.MasterKey Licensing System from MSC.Software for use in support of the Airborne Laser Program (ABL). "The diverse engineering services provided by Wyle Laboratories are a perfect example of the reasons why flexible software licensing is critical to product development programs with multiple contractors and in-house personnel located in different places," said Frank Perna, chairman and chief executive officer of MSC.Software. "By having engineers at different companies and locations working with the same tools, you can dramatically decrease the non- value-added time and cost of translating models and results and increase collaboration within the engineering teams. This is essential for distributed engineering programs like ABL. We are excited to be part of this program and to be working with the engineers at Wyle and the other contractors who are bringing this technology from the virtual world to the physical world." "We did an extensive trade study to determine our present and future analysis requirements and concluded that the MSC.MasterKey Licensing System would best fit our current and future requirements as well. The diverse and evolving engineering environment we operate in requires us to provide capabilities that are compatible with our various customers and their unique engineering requirements. The MSC.MasterKey Licensing System would allow us the flexibility to purchase additional capabilities at a later date as our requirements evolve without making any current capabilities obsolete," said Ricardo Reyes, Wyle Program Manager. The Airborne Laser program is a joint program with the Missile Defense Agency, the U.S. Air Force, and Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Wyle is a subcontractor to Boeing providing general engineering services. The goal of the ABL program is to design the first directed energy combat aircraft, which relies on a megawatt-class laser weapon system carried on a specially configured 747-400F aircraft to autonomously detect, track and destroy hostile ballistic missiles.