Dances with Wolves: Dassault, PTC, UGS -- and IBM

For many years, IBM had been the biggest reseller of CAD/PLM software from Dassault Systemes. Over the last 18 months or so, the relationship seems to have weakened. Dassault is taking over more countries where they do their own direct sales, and IBM is enfolding other CAD vendors.

The first to break the Dassault monopoly is PTC, with IBM adopting its WindChill PLM software for sales into China and under-served vertical markets. Ouch! Dassault doesn't speak Chinese?

During this week's conference call, Merrill Lynch analyst Jay Vleeschhouwer asked Dassault ceo Bernard Charles, "Why do you think that IBM has chose to partially sponsor WindChill for emerging markets?"

Answer: That was not an IBM annoucnement but from Parametric Technologies. I don't think it has any effect on our busness. I think the comments made by this company [PTC] is not exactly in line with what the [IBM] field operations will be. So stay tuned.

I can see the point that Charles is making: just because IBM signs an agreement to promote WindChill doesn't mean that the salesforce on the ground will take any notice. Still, this further distancing of IBM from Dassault has got to hurt.

UGS

Turning to the conference call with UGS, Vleeschhouwer asked ceo Tony Affuso if his company would join the dance with IBM.

Answer: "I think the really big news is that IBM has left Dassault. Just what the future for Dassault will be, I don't know. We always considered IBM to be Dassault's strongest asset, and for the IBM team to look objectively at other suppliers in the PLM industry is an interesting move in the market, and one that we need to watch. We've always had a good relationship with IBM around hardware. We'll continue to talk with them as we move forward."

PTC

Add to that the comments from PTC. I'm quoting here upFront.eZine's coverage of the PTC conference call from a couple weeks back:

A financial analyst listening in on last week's conference call wondered if PTC would experience the same problems as Dassault has, where IBM failed to deliver certain resource commitments. The question caught PTC executives of guard, who paused, made false starts, and then stated that PTC was completely confident in IBM: "This is strategic for IBM, just as it is for Dassault."

Another analyst wanted to know if there were certain markets that IBM is preventing PTC from selling into. Apparently not, other than selling to existing Dassault customers. "We'll go after what is 70% of the rest of the world. In that situation, Unigraphics becomes a pretty good target account for PTC and IBM to go after."

Whew!

More details in next week's upFront.eZine, the weekly e-newsletter on the business of CAD.

[All questions and answers quoted here are paraphrased from a replay of the recorded events.]

Comments

[Sergey Garrinchev]

I believe, adjustment of attitudes with other vendors PLM of the decisions, adequate answer IBM to desire Dassault to separate from the exclusive supplier, we shall recollect even the agreement between Dassault and Microsoft.

[last chaos gold]

I believe, adjustment of attitudes with other vendors PLM of the decisions, adequate answer IBM to desire Dassault to separate from the exclusive supplier, we shall recollect even the agreement between Dassault and Microsoft.