Listening in to the Dassault-Microsoft press conference. As industry analysts ask probing questions, there seems less and less to the agreement.
Q: Will Microsoft use 3DXML as a standard like Direct3D?
A: No.
Q: Does 3DXML mean that Dassault and Microsoft are stting their own standard, against Adobe (U3D), Autodesk (DWF), and others?
A: Microsoft has not committed to using XML
Q: Is this an exclusive agreement? Are UGS, PTC, Autodesk left out of working with Microsoft?
A: No, it is not exclusive.
Q: Is this purely a cooperative development announcement?
A: Yes. No new products, no new distribution.
Q: How many developers are committed to both sides.
A: No specific numbers.
Q: It is joint group of developers?
A: No.
Q: Is there joint funding?
A: No comments on funding.
Q: When will products based on this agreement become available commercially?
A: During the normal release cycle.
Q: How does this differ from the same agreement Microsoft has with UGS?
A: Microsoft's agreements are not exclusive.
Q: Which specific customers are requesting this?
A: No one specific customer or group of customers. It's a market phenomenom.
Q: IBM must not be happy about this, being that they are Dassault's major distributor?
A: [no response]
Q: What does this mean about Dassault software running on Unix and Linux?
A: No change.
Q: The nagging question is, Why now? Dassault and Microsoft have been working together for ten years. There is no product announcement. MS has other business partners, which elevates the question even more: Why now?
A: From Microsoft's perspective, customers need Dassault products to work with Microsoft software. Maturity of XML, integration with Office Suite, and we want to support manufacturers.
A: From Dassault's perpective, don't read too much into the timing of the announcement. This is an evolution, we have worked together in the past, we will work closer together in the future. 64-bit computing, Longhorn coming, shift from Unix to Windows, shift from Unix to Linux -- we going to do this right. That's the timing.
Q: Office software will need new interfaces to handle PLM, such as BOM data. Will Microsoft make that interface available to Dassault competitors?
A: We will support an open standard.
Q: What is the potential revenue and marketshare for Dassault? I see expansion for Office, but not Dassault.
A: We do see expansion for Dassault. PLM is small right now compared to EDM, etc.
Q: How does this announcement build on what has already been done? I hear the word evolution a lot.
A: The press conference in Paris showed access to 3D information in way that was not possible before. Access to 3D drawings by anyone in the field, and access the data behind the 3D information. There is a lot of data associated with drawings, which is hard for non-CAD users to access.
A: Be able to send drawings using Outlook, etc. Dassault has a unique plan in how to integrate with Micosoft platforms.
Q: Will there be grandfathering of capabilities to earlier versions of Dassault software.
A: No.
Q: Does Solaris 10 being free have an impact? Will this run on Solaris?
A: Microsoft invests in customers who run softare on our systems.
A: Dassault supports Solaris.
Q: When will we see a product roadmap coming out of this announcement?
A: [not answered]
Q: Will this have an impact on Dassault's R&D budget?
A: Not relevant to our call; Dassault spends 30% on R&D. This agreement makes our R&D dollars go further, because we are not reinventing the wheel.
Q: Will there be functionality differences between .Net and WebSphere?
A: We operate in a hetrogeneous environment; our customers will not allow us to get away with differences. The answer is no, but there might be differences in timing and ability of platform.
Q: Is Spatial involved in the agreeement?
A: Not directly, but perhaps in the future.
Q: How open is this to competitors?
A: It's not the job of the vendor to create a standard. We are offering 3DXML as a standard.
You can listen to the playback at plm.3ds.com
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