Dassault, Microsoft Marry Technologies Around PLM

IBM and Siemens aren’t the only partners working to make Product Lifecycle Management more turn-key.

Dassault Systemes is expanding its partnership with Microsoft, integrating the ENVOIA V6 product development collaboration platform with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and the suite of Office tools. By marrying the two platforms, the pair are hoping to take some of the heavy lifting involved in deploying PLM systems by providing an out-of-the-box implementation that customers can get up and running on quickly, improving time-to-market and ultimately, reducing development time and costs.

The news is one more indicator that  long-time PLM partners IBM and Dassault are moving in different directions. IBM and Siemens recently entered into a strategic partnership around PLM, including offering joint consulting services and more importantly, building Teamcenter 8 on the IBM stack of technology, including its SOA architecture, Product Development Information Framework (PDIF), Websphere middleware and DB2 information management system.

Microsoft and Dassault point to a number of benefits from this tighter level of integration between ENOVIA V6, SQL Server and Office suite, including:

–Desktop access to real-time information and project details as needed from every day productivity applications, opening up PLM to users beyond the engineering organization;

–Synchronized development between packaging, product, operations and R&D to reduce critical errors and the associated costs of poor collaboration;

–The ability to leverage industry-specific PLM best practices and capabilities off the shelf, to speed deployment and cut time to ROI;

–The combination of Microsoft’s Unified Communications technologies with the ENOVIA 3DLive application, provide collaboration tools that let users work seamlessly in 3D, regardless of their geographical location or function.