WorldCAD Access

Dassault Unloads French Sales Team

Dassault Systemes today exited direct sales of its PLM software in France, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Its Dassault Systemes Solutions France division had handled SMBs; the division and its 120 employees are launched as a new independent company named Keonys, which gets DS Value Added Reseller designation.

The press release spins its this way:

In line with Dassault Systèmes’ plan launched in 2006 to build a powerful PLM indirect sales channel, the creation of  reinforces Dassault Systèmes’ network of PLM resellers in more than 60 countries.

This move is surprising, because Dassault has been taking back sales from IBM. But such is the tossing and turning of CAD vendors: do they make more $$$ through direct or indirect sales. 

I wonder what Keonys means? Maybe its a combination of Latin words for "pure motives" and "high profits."

FLO Rejected by ADSK

Autodesk has decided against Flomerics -- for now.

Flomerics doesn't want to be bought by Mentor (anyone know why not?) and hoped Autodesk would instead (anyone know why?). Autodesk mulled it over for a few weeks, and decided against being the white knight.

Meanwhile, unwanted suitor Mentor is itself not having much luck. Only about 5% of FLO shareholders have turned their stock over to MENT. And Cadence Design is thinking of buying up Mentor.

Engineous Software Worth $40M to DS

Engineous Software and its 95 employees are being bought by Dassault Systems for its Delmia Simula division at $40 million, reports the Triangle Business Journal. Its software automatically determines optimal designs and trade-offs with direct links to most CAD software, Excel, Word, MATLAB, Ansys, Adams, and Patran. Annual revenues were $17 million in 2007.

I had to chuckle at Chris Coletta's description of Dassault: "French logistics software firm."

ADSK Owns MFLO

Autodesk completes purchase of Moldflow. Final price tag: $201.7 million.

Next up: dealing with Flomeric's demand for an all-cash offer from Autodesk. Sigh. Being the richest CAD company in the world must feel like being a recent lottery winner and having all your new friends come calling.

Flomerics to Autodesk: Save Us from Mentor

ShareCast reports that Flomerics doesn't like the unwanted, undervalued offer from Mentor Graphics, and is hoping Autodesk will pay a lot more more.

The company confirmed this morning that it is involved in discussions with Autodesk regarding a possible merger.

Flometrics specializes in software fluid dynamics and thermodynamics; Mentor Graphics does electronic design software. Interactive Investor reports that Mentor already owns nearly 30% of Flomerics.

Update

Mentor is offering only 102 pence (100 pence to the British pound), while Flomerics current share price is 112 pence.

Financial Times reports that Mentor's market capitalization is just $1.1 billion, while Flomerics is $9.3 billion on annual sales of $2.2 billion -- numbers very similar to that of Autodesk. It is not clear to me how Autodesk could afford Flomerics, perhaps only through a merger -- one that would double the size of ADSK instantly, a tantilizing thought, to be sure is much smaller, as commenters note. 

Speculation: Autodesk to Buy Bentley Systems?

The non-appearance of Autodesk CEO Carl Bass at this week's annual luvfest Bentley Systems puts on for its user base is leading to speculation that the west coast company is preparing to gobble up the east coast one.

A buyout makes sense for these reasons:

-- Autodesk wants into one of Bentley's strongholds, plant design.
-- Autodesk has nearly a billion dollars in cash.
-- Bentley Systems has many large corporations and government agencies as customers, valuable segments that Autodesk would no longer need to fight its way into.
-- AutoCAD already reads and writes MicroStation DGN files; MicroStation already reads and writes AutoCAD DWG files.
-- And, as owners of a private company, perhaps the Bentley brothers are looking forward to retirement, as a commenter speculated on this site.

A buyout make little sense for these reasons:

-- the price tag for Bentley Systems is high: $1.35 billion, based on a 3x multiple of its 2007 revenues of $450 million.
-- Autodesk might have to borrow nearly half that amount, in order to leave some cash in its bank account, at a time when borrowing is tight in the USA.
-- after years of rancor, it would be difficult to merge the two very different corporate cultures. (Could be overcome by leaving Bentley in a Revit-like state "over there").
-- if Autodesk were buying Bentley, Carl Bass would not have been penciled-in for a mere "telepresence" at BE; he'd have been on-stage and among the crowds, shaking hands with his new fanbase.

MoldFlow: No Changes

Buzz Kross writes:

I heard you were wondering if we intended to continue the link to competitive tools. Absolutely.

We plan no changes. Moldflow is a key aspect of our CIM strategy. We intend to keep the solution open and will continue to work with everyone. Earlier today, I sent a e-mail to virtually all my competitors telling them that this is our plan.

Microsoft Grabs Rendering Pioneer Caligari

Adena Schutzberg alerts us in All Points Blog that Microsoft has bought out Caligari for use with its Virtual Earth site. She writes, "I think I've heard of the company from my days in CAD. Perhaps the CAD folks will have something to say about this?"

It's not CAD, but one of the very early rendering technologies for PCs. I had to check the archives of upFront.eZine to recall exactly what Caligari was. I found that upFront.eZine reported in October 2001:

Caligari says it will resell IMSI's TurboCAD 2D and 3D drawings CAD software, while IMSI will resell Caligari's trueSpace 3D modeling and animation program. Press release notes indirectly that neither can read each other's files, but require intermediate translation to DXF, VRML, etc.

Caligari CEO Roman Ormandy talks about it here.

Nokia Closes German Plant

The story of Nokia closing the last cell phone manufacturing plant in Germany is fascinating to me. As a self-employed businessman operating in Western Canada, I launched and operate my business with no government subsidies -- except for one: this small business pays a lower corporate tax rate than do larger businesses.

(Even that tiny assistance is seen as a distortion to the marketplace, because it could inhibit growth in small businesses should owners not want to pay the higher tax rate.)

Keep that in mind when you read about the closing of this plant:

-- Finland's Nokia is the last cell phone maker to move production out of Germany to a lower-cost region; Germany labour costs are 10x more expensive than Romania (although labor is a small portion of the cell phone's manufacturing cost).

-- Up to 2,300 employees may lose their jobs; they are in shock, because many worked overtime in December.

-- "Boycott Nokia," says a leader in the Confederation of German Unions, which will be losing up to 2,300 dues-paying members.

-- German government threatens to block European Union aid for relocation; EU says corporations no longer receive any, after the fallout from when the uber-government paid AEG to move production from Germany to Poland.

-- Politicians are calling for Nokia to repay the e88 million it received in subsidies; however, the EU's agreement with Nokia has expired.

-- A conservative EU parliament member wants the EU to cut corporate subsidies from e50 million down to a maximum of e20 million; Hungary pays up to 50% of high tech company's relocation costs.

-- EU president Jose Barroso admits, "If a shift from Finland to Germany is possible, then a shift from Germany to Romania also has to be possible."

In summary, European politicians are shocked, shocked! when corporations follow the rules set up by the EU and member governments.

In related news, I was pleased to read the Canadian government refuse Ford Motor Company's request for a $30 million subsidy to re-open a engine manufacturing plant in Ontario.

Links:
* Politicians Accuse Nokia of Abusing German, EU Subsidies
* German unions urge Nokia boycott over plant closure
* No bailout for Ford, Flaherty says

Rumour: Apple Buying Adobe?

After Robert X. Cringely wrote "Why Apple Will Buy Adobe" , I saw the various linkages that made it all make sense. To me in a personal manner. At 5:12am. This morning. Very early.

-- Apple has tens of billions in the bank; Adobe can be purchased for $21 billion [yahoo.com].
-- MacWorld 2008's slogan will be "There's something in the air," reports Daniel Dilger.
-- Adobe's next major initiative is named AIR, "Adobe Integrated Runtime." [edutechwiki.unige.ch]
-- Both company despise Microsoft for what the convicted monopolist has done to them over the years, both are headquartered in California, and both names start with A. It's a fit that's just that natural.

Cringely's reasons are not as good as mine, however. His list includes the IT market, kicks to the heads to Apple competitors, enterprise sales, digital content dominance creation and distribution on global scales, and dongles. He eplains "For those who don't [know what it is], a dongle is a sort of electronic key that plugs into a PC to enable the use of some expensive software application like AutoCAD."

Adobe and apples. They go together like AutoCAD and dongles.