Shareholders vote today on MSC/Symphony deal

Oct 9, 2009 | Hot Topics

MSC.Software Corporation holds a meeting today at 9AM Pacific at which shareholders will have their say on the deal reached last month with Symphony Technology Group to buy the company for $8.40 per share in cash. The share closed yesterday at $8.41, so someone still...

Social media can lead to problems, threaten success

Oct 7, 2009 | Hot Topics

Interesting lessons to be learned as a vendor tiptoes the line between success and disaster: A vendor (nowhere near the engineering software/PLM world) sent out an email announcing the imminent release of a new product. With permission, this email was posted on a...

Maintenance: 7% or 22% — or something in between?

Oct 6, 2009 | Hot Topics

InformationWeek last week published a very interesting article on the options available to software vendors as they determine how to price maintenance. In case you missed it: SAP customers revolted earlier this year, refusing to support a maintenance price increase...

Autodesk selects first Algor resellers

Oct 5, 2009 | Hot Topics

Autodesk is finally announcing that seven resellers have been selected and are qualified to sell the Algor product line. Before its acquisition by Autodesk, Algor products were available in the US through online and telephone sales and in the Europe, the Middle East...

AVEVA weighing acquisitions and cashback

Oct 1, 2009 | Hot Topics

We’ve been watching AVEVA’s share price climb on the London Stock Exchange and wondered why. The company hasn’t reported financials, no massive new wins have been announced, economic news is looking up but isn’t great… But now we have a clue: According to...

Are we done? MSC accepts Symphony offer of $8.40/share

Sep 29, 2009 | Hot Topics

MSC.Software Corporation announced today that it has entered into an agreement with Symphony Technology Group at $8.40 per share in cash. Recall that MSC announced that it had received an offer from third-party private equity firms to acquire the company for...

Update: Avatech sees signs of recovery after dismal FY09

Sep 28, 2009 | Hot Topics

Avatech reported results for the year ended June 30 that highlight the fragility of the VAR channel. For the fiscal year revenue declined 29% to $35.4 million, leading to a net loss of $313,000, or $(0.05) per fully diluted share for the prior year. For the fourth...

Hmm: Some on Wall St think we’re not done with MSC

Sep 27, 2009 | Hot Topics

We’ll find out soon enough, but at least some investors think that MSC has or is about to receive an offer of more than $8.30 per share. The stock closed the week at $8.31 but dipped back to $8.26 in after-hours trading on Friday. We’ve gone from a total deal value of...

What makes good Twitter?

Sep 25, 2009 | Hot Topics

Week two (week one) in the Twitterverse is a study in contradictions. There’s almost nothing of a PLMish nature to report; none of the vendors I elected to follow tweeted anything of substance while companies more experienced in interacting this way did post...

Microblogging here to stay?

Sep 24, 2009 | Hot Topics

Wow. The Wall Street Journal says that Twitter is about to close a $100 million round of new venture capital funding that will value the company at $1 billion. The real problem, of course is that Twitter has yet to generate revenue or prove that it has any sort of...