MSC.Software (NASDAQ: MSCS), a leading global provider of enterprise simulation solutions, including simulation software and services, announced today that it has been selected by EADS as major partner for Virtual Product Development (VPD) solutions across all EADS business divisions as part of the EADS PHENIX initiative. PHENIX is an EADS group-wide strategic initiative launched in 2007 to achieve harmonization and standardization of enterprise Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) methods, processes and tools across business units. A new partnership agreement was signed between Jean Botti, the EADS Chief Technical Officer and Bill Weyand the MSC.Software CEO on December 18th, 2008.

This harmonization will result in improved communications between EADS divisions, reduced time-to-market and increased overall product quality. EADS has selected MSC.Software as major partner for building up its multidisciplinary simulation backbone strategy. MSC.Software's SimEnterprise product suite, including MD Nastran as well as SimXpert and SimManager are candidates for EADS' common solution for future product development.  SimXpert provides a unified, template-enabled multi-discipline user environment and SimManager delivers seamlessly integrated industrial simulation process and content management to streamline the product development process, reduce costs, and improve product quality. 

"This approach will improve the global collaboration between the Divisions and among specialists within EADS as an extended enterprise. MSC.Software is becoming major provider for mechanical simulation and key partner to prepare multidisciplinary solutions for future virtual product development. It is an important milestone for the EADS cross-divisional PHENIX program and globally for harmonization of PLM methods, processes and tools between the operational units," said Jean –Yves Mondon, Head of the PHENIX program at EADS.

"EADS will benefit tremendously from this new strategic partnership and from the creation of a standardized virtual product development environment for simulation, which leads to more innovation, reduced time-to-market, improved product quality and cost savings," said Jean Botti, Chief Technical Officer,  

"We are so pleased that MSC.Software has been selected as major partner for building up the EADS PHENIX enterprise virtual product development solution," said Bill Weyand, chief executive officer, MSC.Software. "This strategic partnership underscores MSC.Software's strength in the virtual product development industry and we look forward to a continued partnership with EADS to further their advancements in achieving a standardized simulation environment."