INDUSTRY

PLANO, Texas -- EDS today announced its PLM Solutions line of business will enhance, sell and support MSC.Nastran, the world's leading digital engineering simulation software, under a licensing agreement with MSC.Software Corporation. The agreement, terms of which were not disclosed, follows an August 2002 Federal Trade Commission (FTC) settlement with MSC.Software which required MSC.Software to license a version of the MSC.Nastran software available to another company or companies. Through this agreement, which the FTC has approved, EDS PLM Solutions gains a worldwide, perpetual license for the current commercially available version of MSC.Nastran computer-aided engineering (CAE) software source code, along with all related product documentation, product training materials and unlimited worldwide distribution rights. Widely used to digitally analyze products in industries including aerospace, automotive, electronics, medical and heavy machinery, the simulation software targets the growing CAE market. The CAE market is growing at a compound annual growth rate of 10.3 percent through 2007, according to Daratech, Inc., a leading product lifecycle management (PLM) industry market research and technology assessment firm. "The market continues to pressure manufacturers to control costs and shorten time-to-market by reducing physical prototypes and improving product quality," said Tony Affuso, president of EDS PLM Solutions. "Moving analysis upfront in the design process can reduce the number of required physical prototypes and increase the feasibility of digital design alternatives. The addition of NX Nastran to EDS' CAE portfolio further strengthens our market- leading technologies for analysis-driven design and enables our customers to create innovative products, while cutting costs and decreasing time-to- market." Extending the EDS PLM Solutions NX Portfolio EDS will deliver the software as NX Nastran in its traditional standalone configuration. Additionally, EDS will offer tightly integrated versions of NX Nastran within its Unigraphics(R) NX, I-deas(R) NX Series, and Femap(R) applications for a total solution approach. Existing EDS customers will be able to obtain NX Nastran as an extension to their current NX Digital Simulation product set. Effective immediately, EDS will begin developing and extending, licensing, supporting and maintaining NX Nastran, while at the same time preserving 100 percent data compatibility with MSC.Nastran input/output file formats to enable reuse of legacy CAE models and simulation results. "We are committed to continually increasing the value of our entire suite of NX digital prototyping and simulation products by leveraging our CAE expertise and technology," said Chuck Grindstaff, president of Product Development for EDS PLM Solutions. "As we extend this commitment to NX Nastran, we believe all of our customers will benefit from superior CAE solutions and the enhanced competitive environment created by the FTC/MSC settlement." Leadership In PLM EDS announced in April Gartner, Inc., a leading IT industry research and advisory firm, placed EDS in the leader's category -- as measured by both ability to execute and vision -- in its first Magic Quadrant study on the PLM market. EDS launched its PLM Solutions line of business in October 2001 as a combination of the former Unigraphics Solutions (UGS) and Structural Dynamics Research Corporation (SDRC). In 2002, its first full year as part of EDS' portfolio, PLM Solutions had a $2.1 billion presence with over two million production seats in the PLM market, surpassing all other companies. EDS PLM Solutions delivers proven open, scalable solutions to more than 39,500 clients worldwide. These solutions help to drive customer-focused product and process innovations, increase agility and deliver superior financial returns. All of these results are delivered by increasing a client's ability to create and apply its extended enterprise's intellectual capital.