infoTECH Feature

June 09, 2010

Dassault Syst�mes Acquires Exalead

Dassault Systèmes has acquired the French company Exalead (News - Alert) for about 135 million Euros, or just under 200 million U.S. dollars.
Exalead is a search-based, application platform provider to business and government, and more than 100 million unique users a month use Exalead's technology for searches.
Its platform, Exalead CloudView, uses semantic technology to bring structure, meaning and accessibility to previously unused or under-used data in the new hybrid enterprise and Web information cloud.
CloudView collects data from any source, in any format, and transforms it into structured, pervasive, contextualized building blocks of business information that can be directly searched and queried, or used as the foundation for new information access applications.
Exalead is an operating unit of Qualis.
'To accelerate the deployment of search-based applications in all market sectors, we needed a strong international partner," said Alain Cotte, CEO of Exalead. "This alliance represents a tremendous opportunity for our partners and customers who will benefit from Dassault Systèmes' global presence." 
Dassault Systèmes has more than 115,000 customers in 80 countries. The Dassault Systèmes portfolio consists of: CATIA for designing virtual products; SolidWorks for 3D mechanical design; DELMIA for virtual production; SIMULIA for virtual testing; ENOVIA for global collaborative lifecycle management; and 3DVIA for online 3D lifelike experiences.
Exalead Co-Founder François Bourdoncle said that, "With our real-time search, natural language capabilities, Exalead provides a unique Web user experience. The combination with 3D represents the next generation of information technology for lifelike experiences. With Dassault Systèmes the number of people who will benefit from our technology will explode." 
"The combination of these entities will help organizations like ours create better user experiences based on the delivery of information and data in an innovative manner that leverages the latest in 3D technology that consumers have long demanded," added Yvan Proteau, vice president, IS/IT, Yellow Pages Group.  
Exalead announced earlier this year that the University of Central Lancashire has deployed its CloudView search solution. The platform provides core search capabilities for both the university's website and intranet to meet the needs of staff, tutors and visitors.

Ed Silverstein is a contributing editor for TMCnet's InfoTech Spotlight. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Alice Straight
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