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MSC.Software Corp. (NYSE:MNS), the leading global provider of virtual product development products including simulation software and services, today announced the availability of MSC.Simulation Data Management (SDM) 2004. MSC.SDM provides a managed approach to simulation processes, captures all intermediate and resulting data, reduces dependency on physical tests and ultimately reduces product development costs. "Virtual product development (VPD) relies on a combination of computer simulation and physical test to ultimately ensure design performance criteria are met. The simulation processes are typically unstructured, but create a tremendous amount of invaluable data that is uncontrolled and difficult to correlate. MSC.SDM provides the ability to manage simulation processes, capture data that can be reused or reassessed in the future, and provide results in a manner that can be applied to the product design easily" said Frank Perna, chairman and chief executive officer of MSC.Software. "We saw an extremely strong surge in interest in SDM in the latter half of 2003 and we are confident that we can help customers make informed investments in simulation technology for their most critical product performance data." Manufacturers around the world are increasing their use of virtual prototyping and reducing their dependence on physical prototyping in order to reduce development costs and get products to market faster. The increased reliance on VPD techniques necessitates a system for managing the ever-increasing amount of performance-related product data, and for managing the processes that generate and make use of these data. "The MSC.Software SDM Framework foundation of our Design Intelligently in a Virtual Environment system provides high performance, efficient computation and ensures stability to support the integration and synthesis of multiple software simulation and post processing tools dynamically assembled in a Virtual Product Development system," said Mike Lehti, TI Automotive. "To provide our customers superior product designs which are driven by simulated test results in the vital advanced stage of the design lifecycle, we are confident that MSC.Software will continue to provide future opportunities to maintain the forefront position in the evolution of simulation data management technology." MSC.SDM dramatically improves the virtual product development process by allowing engineers to study product design and performance more rapidly and with more confidence. MSC.SDM 2004 includes many new features and enhancements enabling engineers to set-up simulation processes, conduct the simulations, quickly evaluate results, iterate through several design "what- if" scenarios, and provide high-impact feedback to the design team. Some of these new features include: * Trade Study Conductor: Enables long-running, multi-step simulation processes and "what-if" evaluations to be conducted -- including fail-safe process management mechanisms to accommodate processes that may run for days or longer. * Report Generator: Automatically extracts the required data and correctly places them in pre-formatted reports. By enabling engineers to create comparison reports, they can compare equivalent data of different variants of a simulation, and rapidly gain understanding of design influences. * Enhanced GUI for easier and faster navigation: Through the highly-configurable standard Web-based user interface -- including the capability for multi-lingual portals -- engineers can enjoy as much functionality as they need to evaluate designs, manage the process/data audit trail and drill down into selected SDM data objects. * Process Input Wizard: A new web-based mechanism to configure powerful wizard-guided user interfaces, for subsequent easy parameter entry and processes automation by simulation engineers. * Units Management: Data entered in different engineering units systems can be systematically managed -- with automatic units conversions, of particular value to international collaborative applications. * Inclusion in the MSC.MasterKey Licensing System: MSC.SDM 2004 is available under the MSC.MasterKey Licensing System (formerly the VPD Campus Licensing System). The MSC.MasterKey system is tailored to the unique environment of every customer, maximizing productivity and engineering budgets by providing full-range simulation capabilities and flexible product management from a token-based system. MSC.SDM establishes a web-based Enterprise Simulation Portal that further improves the return on investment of existing simulation tools and systems, by increasing productivity and giving companies collaborative, enterprise-wide access to model and simulation data. This allows engineers to perform automated simulations, evaluate design changes and generate comparative reports to determine optimal design configurations. For more information on MSC.SDM please visit: http://www.mscsoftware.com/products /.