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SGI, Dassault tie up for Catia support

Worldwide, over 11,000 Silicon Graphics workstations have been sold for

T O D A Y

• Visions and revisions • SGI, Dassault tie up • Web tools from Ruksun • Cabletron in India

Catia use since its launch. With its availability in India, SGI now offers its customers a combination of hardware and software tools that, it promises, would revolutionise the way products are designed and tested.

For example, designers and engineers now have a rich new digital prototyping tool set that combines the powerful simulation capabilities of new Catia products including 4D Navigator, Assembly Navigator and Catia Robotics, and an advanced real-time 3-D graphics workstations from Silicon Graphics.

Dassault has adopted a two-prong approach to meeting customer demands of the $357-million CAD/CAM market. "The first is a process-centric approach for customers who need high-end capabilities and to support many capabilities, for example, the automotive industry. Here we work through partnerships and are committed to deliver support to the customer until product life is over. The other is a design-centric approach. It is PC task-driven, a sort of a modern drawing board. This is to serve the AutoCAD-like low-end market and we use dealers to offer Catia solutions to this market,'' said Francis Bernard, Dassault Executive Committee advisor and board member.

When Catia was launched, IBM/ETS was selected to market, sell and support Catia worldwide. Since then, details of the extension of this partnership to individual countries have been worked out on a case-by-case basis.

With the extension of this partnership to India for SGI systems, Indian customers who buy Catia on SGI will now have access to full support services from IBM/ETS.

Since IBM/ETS has no channel to address the SME market which is, perhaps, the largest potential market in India, Dassault has recruited the services of EDS Technologies and HOPE Limited to address these customers.

Existing major customers in India include Telco, Mahindra & Mahindra, Maruti and HAL. "Catia is already assisting Telco to make cars, and will extend assistance to build engines,'' said Bernard, explaining the growth potential in the Indian automotive segment.

In September, coinciding with the launch of SGI's Intel-based workstations, Dassault will also be launching Catia Version 5 designed for the Windows NT platform.

This is to tap the low-end market. "The problem with the low-end market is making the SME sector understand that they need the high-end systems/software as investment for the future,'' said Patrick Jagou, Global Partner Manager for SGI, responsible for the relationship with Dassault.

Dassault is also looking into the possibility of starting a Catia Development Centre in India, according to Bernard. "We may either extend the Deneb Robotics office in Bangalore or opt for a third party developers to set up the centre,'' he said. Dassault is talking with IBM Global Solutions and Satyam Infosystems among others.

Dassault is also interested in setting up a dedicated office in India for Catia support for the South Asia-Pacific region.

But Bernard said a decision would be reached only when his company feels more comfortable in India and understands the market better. This may take as long as three years.

- Compiled from the Indian media

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