MSC bidding war heats up
MSC Software announced that its board of directors has received revised offers to acquire the company. The original offer of $7.63 per share from Symphony was trumped last week when an unnamed party offered $8.00 per share; under the original agreement between...
Using Xbox 360 to simulate more than games
In the “How cool is this!” pile: According to HPCWire, researchers in the UK used a number of Xbox 360 gaming console chips to build a cheaper parallel processing engine for their research into the predictability of cardiac arrhythmias. The research is described in...
Social media the answer to PLM marketing budgets?
At a time when it is more expensive than ever to rely on traditional marketing outlets like user meetings, mailings, magazine ads and call centers, the perceived “free” nature of online marketing is very appealing. Do PLM/design/engineering/analysis software buyers...
MSC gets another offer
Remember suitor M, described in MSC’s proxy as not having financing available by the end of August? Well, that may have changed. Or it may be a completely new entrant - who knows?MSC just announced that it has received a proposal “superior” to that from Symphony and...
HPC explained
I don’t usually promote vendors’ marketing materials, but this one is just too good to pass up. Sun Microsystems and AMD have teamed up to sponsor HPC for Dummies, an ebook in the famous yellow and black Dummies series. You do need to give some contact information and...
Five tips for writing the perfect press release
I see dozens of press releases in a typical week, and most are nothing special. Company A is proud to release product B; company X has selected vendor Y; so-and-so is named to powerful-position-Z. But some releases do stick out, leading to my top tips for writing...
MSC proxy: drama, mystery and 13 suitors
MSC Software has finally filed the proxy statement for its proposed acquisition by Symphony Technology Group - and it makes interesting reading. At the very least, it explains why it took so long to get the proxy to the SEC.First, a proxy statement is a document that...
The potential for CAE: 10 million licenses?
One of the questions I am most frequently asked is the rate of CAE penetration: how many possible users are there for CAE applications? How many of these are actually using CAE today? How is this likely to grow? Investors ask because they don’t necessarily understand...
Are you thinking about cloud computing?
Cloud computing is still a very ill-defined concept, with definitions that vary by user industry and from IT vendor to vendor. But most agree that cloud computing provides access to IT resources that are outside the traditional data center, in a shared resource across...
All about you and you and you …
I started Schnitger Corp. a little over a year ago, and I must say it’s gone very well. Thank you! But this post is about you, the people who read this blog. My hosting provider makes available a pile of statistics from which I’ve distilled the following • in the last...
Carl Bass on R&D
One of the most interesting aspects of the Autodesk Q2 earnings call was a short discussion on R&D expenditures. Autodesk was making the case that it was poised to withstand the economic downturn, however long it may last, because it has been managing budgets to...
Autodesk’s ‘triple whammy’ in Q2
[In colloquial English, a “double whammy” is when something causes two problems at once.]The media (and investment analysts) have focused on the positive news to come out of Autodesk’s Q2 earnings release, all showing a sequential improvement: • Manufacturing division...
ESRI’s Jack Dangermond profiled in IBD
I’ve been fortunate over a long career to meet many amazing people. One of the most interesting has just been profiled by Investors Business Daily in their series on entrepreneurs: ESRI founder Jack Dangermond, arguably the “creator” of GIS. Jack’s built what appears...
Some aspects of Autodesk’s business show improvement in Q2
Autodesk today announced results for its July quarter that were in-line expectations but still depressing. Total revenue for the quarter was $415 million, down 3% sequentially and down 33% from the second quarter of fiscal 2009.CEO Carl Bass said that these results...
More on ANSYS and MSC Q2 — are we at the bottom of the U? W?
MSC Software and ANSYS filed quarterly reports with the SEC on Friday, so we now have more information about each company’s Q2. Recall that MSC didn’t hold a conference call for analysts because of the pending acquisition by Symphony Technology Group; ANSYS did hold a...
ANSYS reports mixed Q2 and lower 2009 forecast
ANSYS reported second quarter results today that highlight the difficulties certain parts of the global economy continue to face. For Q2, ANSYS reported total GAAP revenue of $122.0 million, up 10% from $111.2 million in the second quarter of 2008 and up 5%...
MSC revenue down 19%, reports net loss
MSC Software reported results tonight and has announced that it will not hold the earnings call previously scheduled for tomorrow afternoon because of its expected acquisition by Symphony Technology Group.For the second quarter, total revenue was $51.7 million, down...
SolidWorks Stimulus Package helping thousands
Not to be outdone, SolidWorks issued a press release about its displaced worker program, the SolidWorks Engineering Stimulus Package. Since it was unveiled on April 6, over 9,000 displaced designers and engineers have taken advantage of the free SolidWorks CAD...
DS Q2 revenue down 5% but profit down 41%
Dassault Systèmes reported today that Q2 revenue fell 5% from a year ago to 310.9 million euros, the high end of its earlier guidance, while net profit fell 41% to 25.7 million euros from 43.2 million euros. On a sequential basis, however, revenue was flat to up...
Autodesk displaced worker program expands to N. Europe
Autodesk announced today that it was rolling out its program for displaced designers and engineers in Northern Europe, with more regions to follow. The Autodesk Assistance Program has been operational in North America since April and reports that, to date, nearly 7000...
