IBM and Dassault Enter PDM Partnership
IBM (Armonk, NY) and Dassault Systèmes have announced a partnership to develop new product data management solutions. Under the agreement, Dassault will purchase IBM's ProductManager for $45 million, and form a new company called Enovia (Charlotte, NC). Joel Lemke, formerly GM for solutions in IBM's Global Manufacturing Industries unit, will take the helm as CEO of Enovia, reporting to Dassault president Bernard Charles. Enovia will develop and market ProductManager and a Virtual Product Model to address Virtual Product Development Management (VPDM) requirements. IBM will form two new worldwide organizations: IBM PDM II Solutions, to market and sell the new ENOVIA products, and IBM Enterprise Engineering Services to provide business transformation, consulting and implementation services. "This is a very positive announcement for IBM, Dassault Systèmes, their customers and the industry," said Ed Miller, President of CIMdata (Ann Arbor, MI). "Combining the functionality of ProductManager with the new suite should result in an improved total offering focused on enterprise design and manufacturing integration." "It is great to see this synthesis between product-centric and process-centric approaches to product information management," offered Wayne Collier, Senior Research Analyst at D.H. Brown Associates (Port Chester, NY). Gartner Group (Stamford, CT) VP David Burdick agrees that the partnership could signal "a new technological foundation" for enhancing competitiveness in product development organizations.