CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive

8 June 2004

Acquisitions

UGS to Acquire D-Cubed; Acquisition to Expand UGS Position as PLM Industry's Principal Supplier of State-of-the-Art Component Software Technology

UGS ( http://www.ugs.com ) announced a definitive agreement to acquire D-Cubed, Ltd., a Cambridge, England-based supplier of embedded technology used by virtually all of the world's leading computer-aided design (CAD) application developers.

"The addition of D-Cubed products firmly positions UGS as the principal supplier of component software technology to the global PLM industry, and further validates our intention to remain the open solutions leader," said Tony Affuso, chairman, CEO and president of UGS. "The same PLM Open strategy and business model that have been so successful with our Parasolid® software and JT Open initiative will continue to be employed with the D-Cubed family of products."

"As we begin our new chapter as an independent company, we welcome the world-class team of D-Cubed professionals to our UGS family," continued Affuso. "Uniting D-Cubed with UGS is an important part of our R&D growth strategy and we will continue to pursue the best ways to enhance our portfolio, build on our superior technology platform and add value for our customers."

The transaction is expected to close within 45 days, pending satisfaction of customary closing conditions.

D-Cubed develops and markets a suite of software component products that manage various aspects of geometric modeling functionality. The components are licensed by software development organizations for integration into their own end-user products. The majority of the world's leading mechanical CAD applications - including AutoCAD, CATIA, Inventor, IronCAD, Mechanical Desktop, One Space Designer, Pro/Desktop, Solid Edge®, SolidWorks, thinkdesign, Unigraphics® NX, and many more - contain one or more D-Cubed components, making its solutions the de facto industry standard.

"UGS' unmatched reputation for quality and integrity in supplying the PLM industry with component technology makes this transaction a perfect fit for D-Cubed," said D-Cubed president John Owen, who will continue working with UGS. "UGS' history of offering products like the Parasolid geometric modeling kernel on a 'level playing field' policy was a significant factor in our decision to work with UGS. We look forward to the increased market opportunities for D-Cubed technology that will result from this acquisition."

Concurrent with today's announcement, UGS also introduced the product family name "PLM Components" as part of its growing business for industry standard component software products. The PLM Components product suite, which D-Cubed products will join upon the closing of the transaction, promote open innovation throughout the community of component adopters and enable seamless interoperability among applications in the PLM market. UGS plans to market its PLM Components products as part of the company's innovative PLM Open strategy - UGS' open approach to doing business and developing technology - while continuing to employ the company's unique level playing field business model.

PLM Components - UGS' fifth product suite in addition to Teamcenter®, NX, Solid Edge and E- factory® - consists of:

•  Parasolid - a popular geometric modeling kernel;

•  PLM Vis - enterprise product visualization technology embedded in all UGS products and many partner applications;

•  JT Open Toolkit - software to enable collaboration and visualization that powers the JT Open program; and

•  PLM XML SDK (software development toolkit) - technology that implements UGS' open data model for customers and third parties.

"We welcome and look forward to serving the D-Cubed customers, many of whom are already UGS customers using one or more of the products in our PLM Components suite," said Chuck Grindstaff, executive vice-president of PLM Products for UGS. "We will continue to provide these customers with the outstanding technology and product support they are accustomed to."

"As our industry's leading voice for openness to promote standardization and interoperability, UGS will continue to leverage the D-Cubed components that are already fully integrated into our NX and Solid Edge family of products," added Grindstaff.

 

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