Dassault Systemes acquires SRAC

Wednesday, April 4, 2001

Anaheim, CA--In his opening address at COE-the CATIA, ENOVIA and DELMIA users Spring Conference-Bernard Charles, president of Dassault Systemes S.A (www.dsweb.com), formally announced Dassault's acquisition of Los Angeles-based FEA vendor Structural Research & Analysis Corp. (SRAC; www.cosmosm.com), in a stock transaction of $22 million (US).

SRAC primarily offers analysis programs for users of many CAD programs, to enable them to perform analysis early in the design process. For example, its COSMOS/DesignStar program analyzes solid models from most CAD programs and is available in fully associative form for SolidWorks (another Dassault subsidiary), Solid Edge, and Autodesk Inventor.

As a wholly owned subsidiary of Dassault, SRAC will continue to operate under its current name, and will continue to offer multi-CAD analysis solutions. Barbara Weingarten-Guerra, formerly vice president of sales and business development, is the new CEO. "In addition to continuing to develop products in the design area, we will also create a separate sales and support organization for IBM customers," she says. "We will continue to sell design analysis software through our international VAR network of more than 370 VARs."

SRAC will also continue to support COSMOS/M, its general-purpose FEA program, although Victor Weingarten, the company's founder, does not expect future major upgrades to be made. "COSMOS/M's capabilities will eventually be incorporated into COSMOS/DesignStar, and the acquisition will help SRAC continue to improve the technology," Weingarten says.

Dassault Systemes has sophisticated FEA capabilities integrated within CATIA, and works in close partnership with LMS (which sells solutions from the former CADSI) and looser partnerships with FEA vendors MSC.Software and ANSYS . Dassault does not rule out the addition of further FEA capabilities in the future, according to Stephane Declee, director of Dassault Systemes' R&D, Strategy & Research division.

"We want to be the 3D company," Declee says, "and we want to offer complete product definition and lifecycle management."

The acquisition is subject to Dassault Systemes stockholder approval. The company expects the acquisition to be accretive to earnings within 12 months.