Long-time business partners IBM and Dassault Systemes
have agreed to integrate their flagship middleware and product
lifecycle management (PLM) solutions.
Officials from both companies believe the move will result in
better workplaces compliant with IBM’s On Demand initiative for
delivering compute resources wherever and whenever they are
needed.
The aim is to help simplify integration of the client PLM client
systems with legacy systems and other business applications,
creating workplaces where non-engineers can access any product
information in real time.
Both companies will integrate IBM products further, including
WebSphere with Dassault's suite of product development and data
management applications such as Catia, Delmia, and SmartTeam.
"We see the alignment of this technology as more directly
addressing our manufacturing clients needs to have a streamlined,
integrated, and cost-effective IT platform that can result in being
able to share and manage product information more easily and help
to stimulate product innovation," said Bill Reedy, vice president
of IBM's Business Development Software Group.
The integration will be phased in gradually and beginning with
V5R13 of Dassault’s Enovia PLM offering.
With PLM integration services, customers using web services
running on WebSphere will allow those web services to be used by
client organisations to integrate Enovia applications with their
other systems and applications through EAI-based middleware
including WebSphere Business Integration.
Another advantage is that the major components of the Enovia
family can use WebSphere Application Server to make it easier to
enhance the deployability, availability, and scalability of the
applications.
Officials said integrating Lotus Sametime capabilities within
the Dassault Catia and Enovia DMU suites of applications can create
peer-to-peer and extended real-time collaboration and review
capabilities.
The SmartTeam-WebSphere integration will make it easier for
corporate users to upgrade to a larger WebSphere business
integration platform as the technical demands of the business grow,
the officials added.
Ed Scannell writes for InfoWorld