GOVERNMENT

IBM and MSC.Software today announced a strategic alliance to provide global automotive, aerospace and defense manufacturers with comprehensive product development solutions including virtual product development (VPD) software, professional services and enterprise systems. As part of the agreement, IBM and MSC.Software sales, services and technical teams will collaborate to help large industrial manufacturers improve their product development processes, reduce costs and improve time-to-market. In order to beat tight product development schedules and the constraints of shrinking budgets and resources, major industrial manufacturers are seeking ways to increase productivity and realize process efficiencies related to bringing new products to market. The joint IBM and MSC.Software software, professional services and enterprise infrastructure offering, with built in return on investment metrics, can help manufacturing executives measure and track the effectiveness of new systems and the overall maturity of their product development processes. By focusing on product performance attributes and utilizing virtual product development techniques, manufacturers can dramatically reduce product development time and costs, especially for mass-produced transportation and industrial products. IBM and MSC.Software will develop combined 'solution stacks', or integrated product offerings, around high-growth segments including data management and durability. Under the terms of the agreement, MSC.Software will optimize their applications on IBM WebSphere* Internet infrastructure software and DB2* Universal Database running on IBM eServers* and Linux. Both companies will jointly market, implement and support the product offerings. Customers will have access to an unmatched product development offering backed by decades of best practices expertise in IT integration, process automation and data management, and domain expertise in critical engineering disciplines like durability, aerodynamics and noise vibration and harshness (NVH). This agreement expands on the current relationship between MSC.Software and IBM in which MSC.Software is an IBM business partner for sales and support of IBM's PLM product portfolio, including CATIA, ENOVIA, and SMARTEAM solutions developed by Dassault Systemes. "Our expanded strategic relationship with IBM Global Services and IBM's industrial units allows us to better address the needs of the major OEM and tier 1 suppliers in the automotive, aerospace and defense industries from the top down," said Frank Perna, chairman and CEO of MSC.Software. "We are confident that our leadership in VPD and IBM's leadership in IT integration and professional services engagements is a unique and valuable offering that our customers will commit their product development funds towards." "In a rapidly improving economy, our automotive and aerospace & defense customers are no longer focused just on cutting costs -- they're aggressively seeking new ways to sharpen their processes, develop more innovative products and improve time-to-market. To gain such a fresh competitive edge, they need trusted, world-class partners who can provide the products, services, infrastructure, training and support they require," said Janette Beauchamp, general manager, IBM Global Automotive Industry. "IBM and MSC.Software are just such partners. We've jointly developed a suite of integrated solutions that deliver a best-in-breed lifecycle management environment for Virtual Product Development and enterprise-wide solutions that will provide simulation-based product definition and performance prediction with immediate returns." MSC.Software and IBM are collaborating on a number of related fronts, including: * Marketing, sales and support of IBM PLM Solutions and development of new software applications related to design analysis. * Porting and optimization of MSC.Software VPD software products to IBM eServers, including the IBM pSeries, xSeries and IntelliStation Workstations.