This gives DS additional strength and market presence in mobilizing a highly capable and well-respected sales and marketing organization. The value of V6 is in its ability to synthesize information from multiple sources and deliver visual information to increase organizational capacity for better decision-making. The broad adoption of V6 requires engaging a number of business owners and functions within the enterprise. I believe that this agreement can be an important catalyst to a broader and faster adoption of V6.

Joe Barkai, Practice Director, Product Lifecycle Strategies, IDC Manufacturing Insights

The largest single acquisition by DS, this will dramatically expand the global footprint of their overall sales channel, and provide new levels of support for their customer base. While this is most assuredly a win-win for IBM and DS in terms of leveraging the global PLM solutions and services market for both parties, the clear winner here is the DS customer base that will now have an additional 700 strong sales and support organization to support their investment in DS PLM solutions.

Dick Slansky,  Senior Analyst, PLM Research Director,  ARC Advisory Group

This acquisition makes perfect sense and is long overdue. This is a natural evolution for both companies. This acquisition is less about the end of a relationship and more about the evolution of both companies in line with how PLM has emerged as a global enterprise software category.

Kevin O'Marah, Chief Strategy Officer, AMR Research

Dassault Systemes’ intent to acquire IBM PLM for $600 million cash, in a year that has been marked by historic  recession, indicates that Dassault is a financially healthy and a mature company that is re-defining its future to independently manage all its operations including global sales, support and marketing.

Sanjeev Pal, IDC Worldwide Product Life-Cycle Management Program

This is good for the PLM market, and I don’t think it will be a huge surprise that these two PLM leaders have returned to more focused roles. The way that it happened (as an acquisition) accelerated a needed change, so that might be a surprise. I think this is good for everybody. This is a correction of a legacy issue in the PLM ecosystem, in my opinion. Now, all is right with the universe.

Jim Brown, President Tech-Clarity

CIMdata believes this is potentially an excellent move for DS, IBM, and their PLM customers. DS will now have a global sales and support organization that spans and manages all its major customers. This acquisition should give DS more direct interaction with its larger customers and, indeed, most of its customer base. In conjunction with management of the partner channel, this should enable DS to better understand its customers’ needs and respond more quickly to their requests.

Ed Miller, President, CIMdata