INDUSTRY

MSC.Software Corp., the leading global provider of virtual product development (VPD) products including simulation software and services, today announced the release of MSC.Software SimOffice products MSC.Nastran 2005, MSC.Patran 2005, MSC.ADAMS 2005, MSC.Marc 2005 and MSC.Dytran 2005. The 2005 versions of the core MSC.Software VPD products are the first set of products released under the SimOffice brand. MSC.Software's SimOffice is a VPD environment based upon scaleable, interoperable products that help engineers in every industry solve complex product development challenges by testing integrated virtual prototypes within a single, unified framework. The SimOffice product line includes all of the stand-alone products from MSC.Software including the industry's most well respected tools for performing virtual testing of deformation, stress, fatigue, motion, hydraulics, controls, crash, thermal, vibration, acoustics, and other engineering disciplines. By utilizing virtual analysis and testing products and techniques in concert with physical prototype testing, manufacturers can reduce the time and costs associated with product development and reduce the number of costly physical prototypes required to ensure product performance. "The simultaneous release of our core products, together with key enhancements to their interoperability, highlights our vision for providing the industry's best and most well-integrated virtual product development environment," says Frank Perna, chairman and chief executive officer of MSC.Software. "SimOffice is built upon the foundation of our industry-leading software products, enabled by the MSC.MasterKey licensing system, and will evolve over time to be the industry's best, open architecture, virtual product development environment. Our customers tell us loudly and clearly that they want integrated product functionality, ease of use and flexibility to use whatever tool they need, whenever they need it. SimOffice is our answer to these demands and we are confident that customers making investments in VPD technologies will take advantage of the robust, integrated capabilities of SimOffice." The synchronized launch of SimOffice underscores MSC.Software's strategy to provide customers with the best, most well-integrated VPD tools for every step of the product development process. Some of the highlights of the 2005 releases include: * MSC.Nastran 2005: The flagship member of the SimOffice product family delivers new functionality and improved modeling, analysis and post-processing capability focused on ease-of-use, speed, and accuracy in nonlinear simulation; optimization; generalized dynamics; rotor dynamics; acoustics; noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH); and extended element and loads and boundary condition technology. Other enhancements include increased robustness in the Implicit Nonlinear product module (SOL 600); new ACMS (automated component mode synthesis) enhancements focused on "matrix domain" decomposition, which greatly improves the performance and handling of complex geometry over the "geometry domain" decomposition method; and improved MSC.Patran, MSC. ADAMS and MSC.Marc integration for greater interoperability and extensibility. Pre-release capabilities in MSC.Nastran 2005 include the introduction of the Explicit Nonlinear product module (SOL 700) for simulating crash (impact, penetration, and crush), the Topology Optimization product module for design optimization based on component topology, and an Arbitrary Beam Section modeling capability for improved accuracy in complex beam cross-section definitions. For more information on MSC.Nastran and to learn more about what's new with MSC.Nastran 2005, please visit http://nastran.mscsoftware.com/. * MSC.Patran 2005: More accurately import various types of CAD geometry; better organize your CAD data with automatic creation of Patran Groups from CAD Layers; reduced mesh creation time with enhancements to Advanced Surface Mesher; more easily solve a broad class of problems using the improved interoperability with MSC.Marc, MSC.Dytran, MSC.Nastran, and LS-DYNA; gain a better understanding of Finite Element results data with combined component plots. For more information on MSC.Patran and to learn more about what's new with MSC.Patran 2005, please visit http://patran.mscsoftware.com/. * MSC.ADAMS 2005: New ADAMS/Engine Piston module for understanding secondary piston motion; belt and chain solutions in ADAMS/Engine are 4 to 12 times faster; breakthrough productivity gains for complex durability and solid contact models using new 2nd order Hilber-Hughes- Taylor integrator; critical stresses can now be obtained at least a factor of 3 times faster with ADAMS/Durability hotspots computation; improved integration of MSC.EASY5 and MSC.ADAMS as well as MSC.Nastran and MSC.ADAMS enable a more complete virtual prototype; designs can be improved and optimized for NVH performance due to expanded integration between ADAMS/Vibration and ADAMS/Insight. For more information on MSC.ADAMS and to learn more about what's new with MSC.ADAMS 2005, please visit http://adams.mscsoftware.com/. * MSC.Dytran 2005: New Adaptive Multiple Eulerian Domain technology for solving complex fluid-structure interaction problems such as aircraft crashworthiness on water, bird strike simulation with multiple impacts, shaped charge simulation and weapons design, ship collision and underwater explosions, blast resistance and survivability, and pouring of liquids into containers; new elements, constraints, and material models for MSC.Dytran LS-DYNA, as well as expanded support for all major UNIX, Linux, and Windows platforms for greater speed and scalability under a single analysis environment. For more information on MSC.Dytran and to learn more about what's new with MSC.Dytran 2005, please visit http://dytran.mscsoftware.com/. * MSC.Marc 2005: Improved contact and friction modeling, easier control of loading history and material property definition with new multivariable table input,; faster, more accurate prediction of key powertrain design parameters using bolt modeling and analysis of large engine block models; tighter integration with MSC.Nastran, MSC.Patran, and MSC.ADAMS. For more information on MSC.Marc and to learn more about what's new with MSC.Marc 2005, please visit http://marc.mscsoftware.com/.