In an unexpected move, Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC) on May 30 announced plans to acquire Rasna Corporation in a stock swap valued at $189 million. Clearly, PTC gives a high priority to driving greater engineering content into the front-end of design and accords real faith in Rasna's Mechanica technology.
Today's demand for solids-driven design and virtual prototyping confirms the need for greater engineering content embedded in design tools. Integration of analytical and simulation capabilities into design with a common database directly addresses this need. Loose integration through translators proves less effective. For example, DHBA research on conceptual design indicates that solids-based design tools immediately enhance the ability of engineers to detect interferences and calculate engineering properties such as mass and moments of inertia as one of the many benefits of solids. Since designers access this reliable engineering information through solids without invoking independent and often complex applications, they immediately capitalize on these analytical capabilities.
Most CAD/CAM vendors support simulation through translators. Now, PTC has the potential to tightly couple Mechanica functionality with Pro/ENGINEER.
Simulation early in the design cycle has been constrained because of the expertise required and the labor demands. But, simulation software will achieve its potential in a broader design market only when engineers can reliably use the capabilities in the same dynamic manner that they use interference checking and property calculations today.
Rasna's p-adaptive technology yields efficient design sensitivity analysis and optimization. Customers express their greatest appreciation for the ease of generating reliable simulation results with changes in design parameters; they appreciate the ability to easily share data across structural, thermal, and mechanisms simulations.
Unification of PTC and Rasna technology will expedite sensitivity analysis and optimization for parts and assemblies even further. Pro/ENGINEER parameters may define critical design variables. The associativity mechanism in a features-based environment expedites transparent conversion of environmental conditions and design models to a "simulation ready" representation.
While translators exist today between Pro/ENGINEER and Mechanica, D.H. Brown Associates believes that database-level integration will require at least a year to 18 months. Most likely, implementation of technology to support p-adaptive meshing that takes advantage of Pro/ENGINEER's associativity will be the greatest challenge. For practical purposes, Pro/MESH will not work with Mechanica because of the differences between finite elements and Rasna's geometric elements. High computational demand from use of exact geometry and high order polynomials in geometric elements requires that meshing algorithms minimize the number of elements. Otherwise, work cannot be done on the desktop.
Additionally, an optimal p-adaptive mesh geometrically weights elements towards regions of anticipated stress concentrations. Because of these subtleties, the meshing technology must come from Rasna.
PTC also faces the risk that this acquisition will alienate market-leading CAE suppliers such as ANSYS, Inc., The MacNeal-Schwendler Corporation (MSC), and smaller suppliers such as Mechanical Dynamics Inc., and Structural Research Analysis Corporation, who view Rasna as a key competitor in the arena of greatest CAE growth potential -- the design market. These vendors may rightly view the Rasna acquisition with alarm and attempt to strengthen their efforts with PTC's competitors. Yet, those competitors either lack interest, like Autodesk, or lack the cash to fully counter the new competitive challenge of a tight coupling that PTC and Rasna can clearly develop. Moreover, with the exception of Rasna, neither the MCAE nor the CAD/CAM vendors have demonstrated the depth of interest in p-adaptive technology to develop a successful competitive offering. In short, the leading FEA vendors will not like the acquisition -- but they may have to live with it without developing effective counters.
True, traditional MCAE vendors still have considerable room to maneuver. No vendor has ever successfully delivered all of the functionality industry wants. While Rasna has the lead in technology and mindshare for the designer market, it does not address high end CAE functionality.
Even so, PTC will be biting into a huge chunk of the future MCAE market. Through marketing leverage related to the existing product, PTC expects Rasna's Mechanica to rise to around $60 million in fiscal 1996 from current levels of approximately $25 million. At that revenue level, Mechanica becomes a major, leading MCAE product offering -- not just an emerging contender. And, PTC commands huge resources in comparison to Rasna, as a startup. Even more fundamental, an integrated offering that might appear in 18 months could well support breakthrough technology that makes front end analysis a reality and turns the market upside down -- PTC's real bet. After dominating the introduction of parametric, feature-based design, PTC clearly aims to extend it's leadership in the next phase as well.
Technology Trends is published by D.H. Brown Associates, Inc., 222 Grace Church St., Port Chester, NY 10573. For a financial review of PTC, including the financial implications of the Rasna acquisition, see PTC: The Tough Favorite of Wall Street Analysts, D.H. Brown Associates, Inc., June 1995.