by Roopinder Tara, Tenlinks.com
This morning, we heard Bernard Charles, CEO of Dassault Systemes, reveal that he took a 2-3 month break from his duties as CEO. This may have allowed him to contemplate the world, as well as Dassault’s place in it.
He seems to have come down from the mountain with nothing less than a coalescing vision of mankind and technology, parts of which have already spread throughout Dassault divisions. One cannot enter Dassault’s North American headquarters without seeing emblazoned on the doors,
“IF WE... ask the right questions, we can change the world”
He is trying to share his wisdom with us from the stage, but is kind enough to break it down into digestible chunks. We hear about “harmonizing nature, products, and life.” There already had been high-minded messages going out to the public in national ad campaigns, including the iceberg commercial, where a town is created from the desert by towing an iceberg to it.
If you are wondering what all this has to do with CAD, CAM, and CAE, you are not alone. CAD, CAM, and CAE are still in the picture, but under “3D” in the Dassault compass.
Then there’s been the acquisitions of companies whose products seem to be as central to Dassault’s core competencies as Pluto is to the Sun:
- Exalead, a French search engine
- NetVibes, an online brand monitoring tool
CAD insiders could make no sense of it. It was just too out-of-the-box. But, I think we were just too small minded. Clearly, Dassault is aiming for much more than the CAD, CAM, and CAE industry. Just how much more is becoming clearer at this conference.
[Reprinted by permission of CAD Insider.]
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