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ABAQUS being bought by Paris, France-based Dassault SystFmes

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If I am not wrong I think Dassault was already having Abaqus solver implemented into CATIA's FEA modules.

From a pure technical and non-comercial point of view I guess CATIA will take advantage of advanced FE features in Abaqus and Abaqus should take advantage of the nice 3D modeling features in CATIA. Though from a comercial point of view ...the last one might be less likely to happen.
 
Re: "I am curious what would happen to us end users?"

It can only be extremely positive news. As stated in the press release, ABAQUS Inc as you know it today will become the world HQ for simulation at DS. The development staff will be **strengthened** by the existing DS team. Support (and sales) will continue through the current high quality channel. The staff are extremely excited which is clear to everyone attending the ABAQUS Users Conference in Stockholm (as we speak). All in all, expect great things in all product areas to continue...
 
This is really interesting Mark. I'll be very interested to see in which direction the "company" will now go. Watching the video interview, the CEO of Dassault says he wants to see the software to be fully generalised, serving all types of markets, to be primary to the acquisition. By this I guess he means integration of CATIA/A N Other software from Dassault with the ABAQUS code. One thing I picked up on was this "merger between Dassault software and ABAQUS software". This is the merger of CATIA/Simulia/ABAQUS into a horribly fashionable design/FE package such as that offered by Pro/E or UG, but obviously on a grander scale with the inclusion of the ABAQUS code. It'll be interesting to see how designers will come to terms with using ABAQUS as a FE code. Look at this the other way; it will be interesting in itself - can you imagine ABAQUS customers having to have CATIA and Dassault in-house simulation software as a bundle with the code? Astronomical costs amongst other things. Also get the feeling that they want to "dumb-down" the software to make it "more accessible to a wider customer base". This was exactly the path ANSYS took when it released Workbench a few years ago - since when they have enjoyed massive capital success - and this move may well be in reaction to that, since ABAQUS/Dassault saw that this market is worth £millions. ANSYS Workbench is actually selling so well, that about 80% of the total development of the software is based on Workbench, ensuring that all capabilities are introduced as quickly as possible. This seems to be the way of the world at the moment. But maybe ABAQUS will remain an independent software as an option for now - who knows - just to appease the current user base and ABAQUS community? The CEO of ABAQUS says he now has the oppurtunity to deliver the product as a "general purpose scientific computing platform", which ties in with the fully integrated software approach pioneered by Workbench. Goldstein also talks about extending the customer base to a far greater reach than anyone imagined, which again seems to tie in with the Dassault CEO comments. Goldstein also makes the point a few times, that "nothing will change except the reach" of the company. This does not tie with what was said earlier.

I see this as a great move for ABAQUS/Dassault, since Dassault will be massively more aggressive in terms of sales and marketing of the product. And ABAQUS deserves to be better marketed as an analysis tool. Dassult WILL NOT be satisfied with ABAQUS' current sales/marketing strategy which, to be honest has been pretty lame; and up until a few years ago, it was none existent.

In the end, all was well until we had the "let's do it!" moment :-/

Dear, dear. We didn't need that.


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Drej,

As an ABAQUS user and recent attendee to their Users' conference in Stockholm, I was able to hear directly from the CEO of ABAQUS and the CEO of Dassault. This was extremely well received by my fellow users and indeed highlights the fact you are misleading/confused in your message.

I suggest you reread the press release, but just briefly:

You stated,
>>" he wants to see the software to be fully generalised, serving all types of markets, to be primary to the acquisition. By this I guess he means integration of CATIA/A N Other software from Dassault with the ABAQUS code"<<

The software(s) we use (Standard, Explicit, CAE etc) are **not** going away in favor of a new Catia integrated version. This was publicly stated by ABAQUS. More correctly, and again publicly stated to all those present, ABAQUS Inc, the **company** is to become the centre of development for the "Simulia" **platform**, the core of which is the nonlinear FEA analysis software we know and use. This is a big difference to your supposition...

Your next statement:
>>" can you imagine ABAQUS customers having to have CATIA and Dassault in-house simulation software as a bundle with the code? "<<<

... is also misleading and dangerously close to sounding deliberately so. How about you continue the "imagine" scenario with something more like the truth: that being, can you image those people who do not use CATIA continuing to use the ABAQUS solvers with their choice of CAD and preprocessing software...

The ABAQUS CEO's statement that nothing would change is, indeed, completely consistent with everything that is in the press release and everything that Dassault's CEO stated.
- The products you know of in the current ABAQUS family will continue.
- The support channel will remain the **same**.
- The sales channel will remain the **same**.
Of course, this is not what the other fea code vendors are going to like to hear...

Finally, your statement:
>>>" Dassult WILL NOT be satisfied with ABAQUS' current sales/marketing strategy which, to be honest has been pretty lame; and up until a few years ago, it was none existent."<<<

...was odd. For a Dassault to pay CASH, and lots of it, you can bet they did a lot of due diligence. It does not take a rocket scientist (or phd in nonlinear mechanics) to compute the approximate annual revenue of ABAQUS last year. If, presumably I have my sums right, it is upwards of $80 million, then this "non existant" strategy was quite effective! Indeed, given that competitors have their revenues inflated by inclusion of non-fea revenue through aquisitions, then this number makes the performance of the competition look, in your word, "lame"...

Anyway, all of this was publicly presented last week and can be verified through reading the press releases, and I trust that other users reading this forum will not be as mislead as you have been.
 
Let me just say from the top that I am an ABAQUS user myself, and that there is nothing intentionally "misleading" about my reply, just plain facts and verbatim quotes from the CEOs in the video interview. And the last time I checked we do (well, *I* do) actually live in a democratic country where opinions based on fact count for something. If anything I would ask you to look and listen more closely to the video interview before you make such elevated and frankly naive insinuations.

> The software(s) we use (Standard, Explicit, CAE etc) are **not** going away in favor of a new Catia integrated version.

First of all, check out Dassault CEOs comments on the "the merger of our existing simulation environment from the ABAQUS environment and the Dassult system will create a tremendous offer to the market" (3m:18s). I never said anything about it "going away" (that would be just plain stupid) only *integration*. When the Dassault CEO says three times the word "integrating/integration" (in reference to the Simulia Dassault/ABAQUS software, see 3m:42s 4m:09s 4m:26s) as an "enterprise platform" and also the ABAQUS CEO (Goldstein) says "We've been doing a great job serving a certain sector of the market and the size of that segment has certainly been enlarging over the last few years, but the opportunity that now presents itself to be able to deliver our technology as part of a general purpose scientific computing platform is quite exciting as we think about extending the reach of our technology to far greater degrees than anyone previously could have imagined". What does that say to you? If you would have read more carefully what I said, I was postulating that ABAQUS/A N Other software (probably the CATIA geometry engine or major parts thereof) would be *integrated* into a software similar to that of ANSYS/ANSYS Workbench offers. How is that dangerously misleading? That's not much of an extension to what the two CEOs were referring to.

And your statement

> ... is also misleading and dangerously close to sounding deliberately so. How about you continue the "imagine" scenario with something more like the truth: that being, can you image those people who do not use CATIA continuing to use the ABAQUS solvers with their choice of CAD and preprocessing software...

is confusing and naive, as Dassault will want to drive every penny out of acquisition and the ABAQUS software technology, which *may* mean integrating the current *very, very profitable* trend of the enterprise integrated FE/design/geometry packages. Exactly as the Dassault CEO stated. *Not* misleading; plain fact.

Finally, the ABAQUS marketing has been, to say the least, *unquestionably* lethargic over the last ten year period; indeed I'll stick with my "lame" description of its strategy relative to the ANSYS strategy. This is such a shame as I said previously, since it is a quality product. There is no denying this. Indeed, having talked to the UK support ( previously, now ABAQUS were actually *very proud* of the fact that their software sold almost by word of mouth up until a few years ago, based on good reports from the nerd fraternity (me being one of them). Yes, more recently, the marketing has become more agressive, but it had to, because it was being driven into the ground by ANSYS and all of the other codes (ALGOR, COSMOS, ANSYS, etc.) considered more accessible, less expensive and more marketable by Joe Bloggs Design & Analaysis Consultancy (not put off either by astronomical learning curves and costs associated). When, other than maybe the last two/three years did ABAQUS ever advertise in the glossy GP engineering mags (The Engineer or Professional Engineering for example)? Never. Ever.


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I guess what bothers me about the merger is, Cosmos is also owned by Dassault through Solidworks. Is Dassault going to intergrate Cosmos with Abaqus in Simulia? Most of the people I have talked to about Mechanica says when it was Rasna it was great until PTC bought it. Since PTC was more interested in developing its CAD and PLM products, Mechanica took a back seat. I hope this doesn't happen with Abaqus.

Mark
 
It'll be interesting to see what happens. I've spoken to a few people regarding COSMOS, and none of them gave very favourable reviews. I'll say again that I can see some sort of integrated solution from Dassault, involving ABAQUS/Catia and probably revolving around the new Simulia package, and if that's the case I can't see where COSMOS fits in. If there's enough interest Dassault may want to keep COSMOS as an independent solution, or it may strip parts off it (the good ones) for use within Simulia somewhere. Who knows? One thing is for certain, given Dassault's development of Catia in the past, and now with their acquisition of ABAQUS, I'm sure there will be an excellent integrated solution package to rival the other big players. If I were ANSYS, PTC etc. I would be worried they could cut a big slice out of the market if they get the product right.


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ABAQUS is the best FE package in the world by a long way, CATIA I know less about but I do know that it is held in extremely high regard by end-users and is favoured over many of it's competitors. It is in theory a great love-match. Question is: will it become like Brad Pitt and Jenifer Aniston? I think not.

Firstly: The ABAQUS-CATIA technical link has been developed over quite a few years now; this has been reflected in many subtle changes to ABAQUS (and presumably CATIA) which have paved the way for the wedding. In other words there has been a long courtship. Secondly: As a buyout there is no possibility of divorce as would have been possible with a technical partnership. Thirdly: the existing products are currently complementary and the whole is likely to be greater than the sum of the parts. So good luck to the happy couple I say.

What will it mean for the end users? Users who can't be bothered to learn ABAQUS speak will now be able to enter a dialog with a very powerful simulation tool. The good ones will benefit enormously, the bad ones will sign off designs which will break or are two heavy (or both). I look forward to much consultancy work in the future sorting out messes generated by pure CAD jockeys.

:)(
 
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