Tuesday, July 10, 2007

MSC.Software Gives Us Twenty-Six Sentences, But Only Five That Almost Matter

You know things have taken a truly pitiful turn for the worse when a software vendor is so desperate for good news it announces new features with such specific phrases as “customers will benefit from numerous enhancements.” That seems to be the story at MSC.Software, which has been on the ropes for some time. We know of at least one private equity fund that is taking a close look at what might be done with the carcass. But we digress.

In this week’s announcement of new features, there were 26 sentences in the body of the press release, not counting headlines and the boilerplate text attached to every press release. There were exactly five sentences that actually mentioned new features in MSC.Software products, and they are, well, not very specific. I think this is the point where Dave Berry would say, “I am not making this up.”

For those of you who still care, the five gems of information, in order, were:

  • In the latest release of Adams, customers will benefit from numerous enhancements to the Adams Solver, Adams/Vibration, and Adams/Car.
  • Some of the new capabilities in the latest release [of MSC Nastran] include advancements in the solver performance, NVH and acoustics, new capabilities for shape and topology optimization, and advanced heat transfer analysis with thermal contact, to name a few.
  • Many enhancements have been included in this release [of Patran] including support for 64-bit hardware for working with very large models and new interface capabilities to improve the overall productivity of the analyst.
  • This release of Marc includes many enhancements, including new optimization for handling large assemblies such as Powertrain systems, new capabilities in component failure and delamination, advances in structural and thermal modeling, and more.
  • In this latest release of Dytran, new capabilities have been included to reduce solution time for many fluid-structural interaction problems.

If you use MSC.Software products, perhaps you can discern the true value of these upgrades by reading these statements. Looking at MSC.Software financial results of the last five quarters, I have to believe not many MSC.Software users are continuing to find such value.


Private equity firms are wondering what to do with the carcass of MSC.Software (above) if they buy it.

 

Posted by Randall at 18:12:25 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |