Dassault Systèmes is a French software company offering technical design software. Dassault is the world leading company in Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and also offers 3D software. Dassault is the largest French software company and the second largest European software company.

History
Dassault Systèmes was founded in 1981 by 15 pioneers as an independent unit of Dassault Aviation, focussing on Computer Aided Design Software (CAD). The company quickly partnered with IBM for the worldwide marketing and sales of its software and welcomed the first clients in 1982, including BMW, Honda and Mercedes-Benz. Over the years, the company grew strongly and in 1992 it established a firm presence in the US with the acquisition of CADAM from IBM.

Dassault was introduced on the NASDAQ (TS: DASTY) and Paris Stock Exchange (TS: DSY) in 1996. One year later Dassault acquired SolidWorks, a maker of mechanical design software, in a 310 million US$ stock transaction. In the year 2000 Dassault and IBM introduced Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), software which enables 3D vision of industrial design and development and the entire product lifecycle. Dassault has grouped its operations under two business lines since then: PLM software and Mainstream 3D software.

Revenues of Dassault have grown both organically and through acquisitions from 632 million EUR to over 1,300 million EUR during the past eight years. Dassault is the largest PLM company and one of the twenty largest software companies in the world, with 100,000 customers, 8,000 employees and 80 offices worldwide. Groupe Industriel Marcel Dassault SAS is the principal shareholder of Dassault Systèmes with, as of December 31, 2008, 43.65% of the share capital and 48.04% of the voting rights of the Company. Chairman of the board Charles Edelstenne owns 6% of shares outstanding.

Products
Dassault has a wide range of software products that support different stages of the product life cycle. All product lines have an engineering perspective. The products are grouped under the comprehensive name Product Lifecycle Management software. Product Lifecycle Management Software is software that supports the life of a product digitally, from conception through design and production to service and disposal, mainly from a technical engineering perspective. PLM is a comprehensive concept that encompasses CAD, CAM and CAE, but also Product and Portfolio Management (PPM), Product Data Management (PDM), Systems Engineering (SE) and Manufacturing Process Management (MPM).

The 6 principal product brands of Dassault Systèmes are:

SolidWorks, for mechanical design in 3D
CATIA, for integrated product design (CAD/CAM/CAE)
SIMULIA, for simulations
DELMIA, for digital manufacturing and production
ENOVIA, for global collaborative Product Lifecycle Management
3DVIA, 3D design software for the general public and for game designers

Although all Dassaults products can be regarded as PLM products, the company is not selling everything through its PLM business line: a set of lower priced 3D CAD products is sold through a separate organizational business line named mainstream 3D. Since its inception, Dassault has gradually expanded its product portfolio in line with its existing expertise. Acquisitions complement the product portfolio in a meaningful way. The company now employs 3,300 developers (40% of its total workforce), in development centers across the globe.

Market and Competitors
In terms of sales revenues, Dassault is the market leader in the Product Lifecycle Management software market with a market share of 18% (source: Software Top 100). The total market has been growing at an average pace of 10% the last couple of years and is worth almost 9 billion USD. The main competitors in the PLM market are Autodesk, UGS (part of Siemens) and PTC. These four companies have a combined market share of 53%, which is a lower level of concentration than is seen in most software branches. Concentration will increase when the branch grows more mature, and smaller players are acquired by the larger ones.

For the Mainstream 3D business segment, the most important competitors are Autodesk and PTC. Autodesk dominates this market with its popular and attractively priced AutoCAD product: Autodesk reports 6.2 million users for AutoCAD, where PTC and Dassault each report less than one million users. PTC and Dassault have until recent years limited themselves to the high-end segment, but are now introducing low-end versions as well to catch up with Autodesk. Autodesk has a lot of ‘mindshare’ among CAD users and adopters: AutoCAD has become a de facto standard.

Dassault also competes with more focused application providers, for instance with ANSYS and MSC Software in simulation software and with Oracle and SAP in product data management and collaboration.