Cadalyst - July 2008 - (Page 12)

cadcentral MSC.Software Plugs into PTC In a recent Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing, the investment firm Elliot Associates, which owns 9.2% (4.1 million shares) of simulation software maker MSC. Software, revealed it was urging MSC MSC.Software introduced simulation solutions that plug into PTC’s to explore strateproducts. For example, users can run simulation on Pro/E models using gic alternatives, the SimExpert module, which is part of the SimEnterprise package. including a posalliances, pointed out, “We exchange sible sale. According to the Orange technology for demonstration and County Business Journal, the investor integration purposes . . . What we’ve reserved the rights to “have discussions achieved . . . was the availability of the with management, potential acquirers, financing sources, or other shareholders functionality, which not only makes available our advanced analysis capaand formulate proposals.” bilities to Wildfire users, but integrates One of the strategic alternatives is our SimManager technology with the to plug MSC simulation products into the PTC product lifecycle management Windchill environment.” In a recent investor call to explain (PLM) portfolio. “Captured best-practice CAE [computer-aided engineering] the results of Q1, the company’s chief operating officer Sam Auriemma methods can be directly distributed to Pro/E CAD users using MSC.Software’s acknowledged, “2007 was a year of SimDesigner Enterprise template capa- transition for MSC with many opportunities and hurdles.” The compability,” the company announced in ny’s CEO and chairman Bill Weyand May. “[MSC.Software’s] SimManshared some good news. “Our firstager can be combined for a complete, end-to-end enterprise simulation quarter total revenue grew at 6% at $61.2 million,” Weyand said. “This environment that enables integration was led by a 20% growth in Europe, with Windchill, adding complemenmaintenance grew at 15% to $33 miltary capabilities to manage simulation lion, maintenance and services revrelated content and automate proenue grew in all geographies worldcesses for added productivity.” wide as well as having a favorable Frank Kovacs, MSC’s vice-presicurrency impact.” dent of global business partners and The Twilight of LDT AutoCAD Land Desktop (LDT) users learned about the retirement of LDT 2006 in March when Autodesk announced the news. Recently, they learned Release 2009 is destined to meet the same fate. IMAGINiT Technologies, owned by the AutoCAD reseller RAND Worldwide, wrote, “The day is finally here! Autodesk is announcing today [June 3] that AutoCAD Land Desktop 2009 will be the last . . . ” To curb panic, it added, “As we say goodbye to Land Desktop, we are saying hello to a new product called Civil.” Engineered Efficiency, a civil engineering consultancy, used its Civil 3D discussion forum (www.civil3d.com) to pronounce “The king is dead! Long live the king! . . . Land Desktop 2009 and Land Desktop Companion 2009 will be the last versions of the venerable Autodesk civil application.” Reaction to the news ranged from enthusiasm (“Thank you, thank you, thank you. It’s about time.”) to annoyance (“A little sooner than I thought”) to acceptance (“It should not come as a surprise to any of us; we have been hearing ‘rumors’ of this sort for a few years now”). According to Adam Strafaci, Autodesk’s senior manager for civil engineering industry marketing, “Autodesk is not simply reducing the choices for its civil engineering customers with this move.” It plans to launch AutoCAD Civil, which will provide design and construction documentation for civil engineering technicians, drafters, and surveyors. Kenneth Wong is Cadalyst’s executive editor. SolidWorks Education Edition Teaches New Lessons If you’re a student or teacher, you now can upgrade to SolidWorks Education Edition 2008–2009, which includes all the capabilities of SolidWorks 2008 Office Premium. Previous versions of the software came with COSMOSWorks (for finite-element analysis), COSMOSMotion (for kinematics and motion analysis), COSMOSFloWorks (for computational fluid dynamics and thermal analysis), and COSMOSWorks Advanced Professional (for nonlinear and composite materials analysis). For the first time, the 2008–2009 edition comes with COSMOSFloXpress, a fluid dynamics application that calculates how fluids flow through a part model. The new curriculum included with the software focuses on designing, analyzing, simulating, rendering, and constructing a scale-model Formula One racing car. According to the company, the new release includes more than “250 user-requested enhancements introduced in SolidWorks 2008.” More News Find breaking and current news at www.cadalyst.com/news. 12 www.cadalyst.com cadalyst July 2008 http://www.civil3d.com http://www.cadalyst.com/news http://www.cadalyst.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Cadalyst - July 2008

Cadalyst - July 2008 Editor’s Window CAD Central FIRST Robotic Beasts Draw Students to Engineering Power! Speed! Action! — Mighty Mobile Workstations are Packed and Ready for Adventure! Vico Virtual Construction Suite 2008 AMD ATI FireGL V8600 and FireGL V8650 — 1-GB and 2-GB Graphics Cards Gaining Independence and Influence The Current State of MCAD Rewriting the Rules of PDM BIM Goes Residential CAD Cartoon Issue Indexes Pleasures of Customization

Cadalyst - July 2008

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