New Education Product Gives Engineering Students and Faculty a Robust, Easy to Use Simulation Product for the Price of a Textbook -- MSC.Software Corp., the leading global provider of virtual product development (VPD) products including simulation software and services today announced the release of MSC.FEA Education Edition 2004. By combining the power and ease of use of MSC.Nastran, MSC.Marc and MSC.Patran, the MSC.FEA Education Edition provides a cost-effective, fully integrated solution tailored for the needs of engineering students and faculty. The MSC.FEA Education Edition integrates CAD interfaces, geometric modeling, finite element pre- and post-processing, and comprehensive linear and nonlinear analysis in a single software package. "MSC.Software is focused on providing educational products for students and instructors from high-school physics to post-doctoral research. This release of MSC.FEA Education Edition 2004 gives engineering students and educators the most comprehensive, easy to use simulation package on the market today," said Frank Perna, chairman and chief executive officer of MSC.Software. "Industrial manufacturers around the world are looking for new engineers who can immediately add value to the product development process and the best way to do that is to give students advanced training with the industry's preferred simulation and modeling products. For the price of a textbook, students and teachers get a complete simulation package." MSC.FEA Education Edition 2004 has been specifically designed to give engineering students and faculty easy-to-use sophisticated analysis tools for advanced research and to teach students the intricacies of product development. Some of these new features include: * The latest enhancements to MSC.Patran 2004, Nastran 2004 and MSC.Marc 2003r3 including improved elements, enhanced spot weld capabilities, temperature dependent composite modeling, heat transfer and nonlinear enhancements and direct data integration to the enterprise versions of MSC.Nastran and MSC.Patran. * Advanced capabilities for nonlinear, optimization, dynamics response and heat transfer analysis * A new, plug-and-play user interface with no external licensing needed * Improved documentation For more information about MSC.FEA Education Edition 2004 or other MSC.Software educational products, please visit http://www.mscsoftware.com/.