×

Manufacturing

Dassault, RAND Worldwide form new PLM-focused company

18 Apr, 2004 By: Cadalyst Staff

---

Dassault Systemes and RAND Worldwide plan to create RAND North America, a joint venture focused on selling Dassault PLM (product lifecycle management) software in North America. Under the agreement, RAND Worldwide will transfer its North American PLM software sales unit to RAND North America, a new company with 60% owned by Dassault and 40% by RAND Worldwide.

Dassault will pay RAND Worldwide $11 million and restructure its loan payments. RAND North American will become a subsidiary of Dassault Systemes. The deal is expected to close by the end of June. RAND Worldwide will retain its other unts, including its IMAGINIT Autodesk solutions, Web portal Engineering.com, ASCENT curriculum development, and PTC solutions.

Starting in 1998, RAND Worldwide was a master distributor of PTC products, a relationship that came to a messy end when at the end of 2002 PTC amended their agreement to expire at the end of 2003. PTC also brought RAND’s software discount in line with that given to other resellers. Subsequently, RAND sued PTC for $100 million alleging fraud, breach of contract, and other counts. RAND also posted losses for much of 2003.

RAND’s relationship with Dassault deepend in 2002 when it became an IBM premier business partner, a DELMIA Business Partner, and a Dassault Systemes CAA V5 partner for complementary application development. At that time, Dassault provided financial assistance to help RAND Worldwide develop its PLM marketing, sales, and services offerings in the form of a 10-year convertible loan of US$25 million.