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CAD Central (News and Analysis)
1 Oct, 2008 By: Kenneth WongPTC Dodges 'For Sale' Rumors; Struc-Soft Struck by Bentley; New Cadalyst Blog: 'Kenneth Wong on CAD'; Cadalyst Updates Benchmark Test; GPU Battles CPU for Computing Hearts; IntelliCAD Users Unite in New Forum; Fashionable New Wrinkle in CAD/CAM
PTC Dodges 'For Sale' Rumors
Not too long ago, PTC, makers of Pro/ENGINEER and Windchill, paid $250 million to snatch up CoCreate, known for its freeform modeling product OneSpace. But soon the tables could turn. A Financial Times report surfaced in September, indicating PTC has hired a financial institution to woo potential buyers. According to the article, the asking price is more than $2 billion, and the matchmaker is none other than investment banking firm Goldman Sachs.
In June, Boston Business Journal reported that PTC agreed to a change-in-control policy that promised the top executives an additional $1.9 million if the company were acquired. In CIMdata's latest product lifecycle management (PLM) market report for 2008, PTC remained one of the five leading solution providers when ranked by 2007 revenues and market share.
When contacted to verify the Financial Times story, PTC's press office responded that the company doesn't comment on its merger and acquisitions strategy. When asked to address the article at Deutsche Bank's Technology Conference (September 9, Palace Hotel, San Francisco, California), Bill Berutti, PTC's senior vice-president of corporate development, said, "Things get printed in publications all the time. As a public company, I can't really comment on it, but our shares are always available for purchase."
UGS, a PTC rival, was acquired in May 2007 by Siemens Automation and Drives, a division of the Germany-based industrial titan Siemens AG. If news of PTC's search for a buyer turns out to be true, the company might be of interest to Siemens AG rivals as well as a number of enterprise software giants eyeing the PLM market.
Struc-Soft Struck by Bentley
What do you do with a reseller that's doing a good job? If you're Bentley Systems, you buy it. In August, Bentley acquired Struc-Soft Inc., its exclusive North American reseller of ProSteel 3D. Montreal-based Struc-Soft sells not only Bentley products but also Autodesk products, including AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT. George Ajami, cofounder of Struc-Soft, explained, "We anticipated this [Bentley's acquisition] might happen, so we split the company into two legal entities: Struc-Soft Inc. and StrucSoft Solutions."
 Struc-Soft, Bentley's exclusive reseller of ProSteel 3D, anticipated it would become Bentley's merger-and-acquisition target. |
When Bentley bought ProSteel 3D's original developer, KIWI Software, in 2007, Struc-Soft began planning for the possibility that it too might become a merger-and-acquisition target for Bentley. At the time, Bentley and Autodesk were fierce rivals, so Struc-Soft's management reasoned that, even if Bentley wasn't interested in acquiring Struc-Soft, dividing the company into two entities would minimize conflicts in selling both Bentley and Autodesk products. Whereas Struc-Soft Inc. now concentrates on distributing and supporting ProSteel 3D under the Bentley brand, StrucSoft Solutions will focus on wood and light cage constructions. "StrucSoft Solutions will continue to sell and support Autodesk products," said Ajami. "I must say, the portion of the company Bentley bought is the slightly bigger one, with about 60% of the resources." Ajami has been named Bentley's director of global structural professional services.
Bentley and Autodesk remain business rivals, but the companies also have chosen to strike a mutually benefiting partnership to promote DWG interoperability among their products.
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