Published by Dassault Systèmes - 26 April 2006

• Increases Mid-size business ability to differentiate with styled, innovative and yet competitive products

• IBM’s PLM Express “Styled Plastic and Packaging” industry solution uniquely priced and packaged for Mid-sized businesses

• IBM’s overall PLM Express Portfolio becomes more competitive, flexible and easier to tailor to individual engineer's needs

 Paris, France, April 26th, 2006 – Demonstrating their continued commitment to deliver industry-leading PLM capabilities, tailored to the needs of mid-sized businesses, IBM and Dassault Systèmes today announced the addition of Product Lifecycle Management Express Styled Plastic and Packaging to their Product Lifecycle Management and Express Portfolio. IBM’s PLM Express portfolio has been helping mid-sized companies gain the benefits of PLM since 2003. Styled Plastic and Packaging provides Consumer Goods and industrial products companies with a single set of integrated applications that help industrial designers greatly reduce time to market on creative new product styles while optimizing cost and manufacturing ramp-up.

IBM is also announcing significant enhancements to its entire Product Lifecycle Management Express Portfolio through the addition of pre-configured, role-based offerings for specific industries. With the additional function that is now included in the PLM Express Portfolio, mid sized companies will be able to respond faster to changing customer requirements and bring products to market quicker with improved quality and more innovation, boosting their competitive market positioning.

Product Lifecycle Management Express Styled Plastic and Packaging: small is also beautiful

To differentiate their products and increase market responsiveness while remaining competitive, mid-sized manufacturers need to leverage the business benefits of PLM like larger companies. IBM’s Product Lifecycle Management Express Styled Plastic and Packaging, combining ease-of-use and affordability, is designed to answer their needs. Including the subdivision surfacing and the functional modeling technologies embedded in CATIA V5, this integrated solution accelerates design cycles and drives innovation in complex, free-form-shape product environments. It helps mid-sized companies to increase profits and minimize development costs by enabling product designers to move quickly from initial concept to detailed design and product testing without any data conversion. Designers can react rapidly to customers’ latest taste changes and deliver a wider range of innovative products by easily incorporating the latest market trends into their products, along with innovative technologies. The solution also helps shorten development cycle time by reusing experience collected from previous projects and reducing the number of physical prototypes.

“For new products, we have reduced design time by up to 44%* and overall development costs by up to 60% which gives our company the flexibility it needs to meet customer requirements right the first time”

says Grant Stratford, Technical Manager at Securistyle, a leading provider of innovative window hardware solutions, based in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, UK.

*findings based on an independent study performed by CIMdata

PLM Express: simplified and even more affordable

IBM is also now delivering more functions with the PLM Express portfolio of solutions to mid-sized manufacturing companies, enabling them to easily acquire an integrated, end-to-end PLM solution from IBM. In addition, IBM's broad and comprehensive PLM product suite has been simplified and grouped into competitively priced "bundles" that align to specific engineering job profiles or product development functions, tailored to the requirements of mid-sized businesses and configured precisely to the needs of their engineers. Companies of any size can start with an initial configuration and add capability as needs evolve. The complete solution, including implementation services, can be financed more simply than ever with the introduction of IBM Financing Advantage for convenient and flexible low monthly payments.

Product Lifecycle Management Express Portfolio includes:

• IBM PLM Applications software developed by Dassault Systèmes: CATIA V5 for Product Design and simulation, SMARTEAM Team PDM for collaboration, workflow and vaulting.
• Hardware such as IBM IntelliStation® PRO Series, ThinkPad notebooks from Lenovo, IBM eServer(logo)® xSeries® or IBM BladeCenter® server, or storage hardware
• ITS services for extended warranty and installation services
• Best practice process consultancy, customization and migration services – from IBM Product Lifecycle Management Business Partners, Dassault Systèmes or IBM Business Consulting Services