Double Digit Growth For a $6.5B Market

The most dynamic segment of the PLM market, with a healthy 12% CAGR in the past 5 years, the Mechanical Computer Aided Engineering market continues to ignore the economic downturn and almost silently, as per the engineers' traditions it serves, has become the most profitable segment of the PLM business.

A first of its kind, this report studies the worldwide market value, the actual growth rate and the vendors revenue form 2006 until now, through an analysis of the top 13 MCAE software vendors in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. It provides analysis through multiple criteria, and for each criteria, the ranking per region based on 2010 numbers.

Compared to our previous MCAE reports published since 2005, beside having extended the scope of the report from Europe to the Worldwide market, we have included a new type of vendor, MathWorks whose products come under our definition for the Mechanical Computer Aided Engineering MCAE. This market covers structural analysis, vibration or modal analysis, thermal, fluid dynamics, crash simulation and analysis, fatigue, plastic injection, test simulation and other simulations of modeled systems, assemblies or parts. Other new comers to our reports are COMSOL, an innovator in multiphysics simulation and Autodesk who is now a player in this space thanks to its multiple acquisitions. See the full list of all the vendors at the end of this executive summary.

Top MCAE software vendors ranked by their worldwide software and maintenance revenue.     © 01consulting

Smaller than the MCAD market in terms of size, but growing much faster, the MCAE market is experiencing less hype, and has been recording a steady growth since almost 30 years. Probably engineers’ need for validation of the software products which are supposed to be used to validate their own manufactured products through simulation, test and experimentations is a key reason why succeeding MCAE products are “senior” products. Most solvers have been available to the market for at least 10 or 15 years if not much more. These characteristics of MCAE products profoundly separates the market behaviour from those of MCAD and PDM.

The above mentioned characteristic of the MCAE market led us to see some mergers, acquisitions and consolidation in the MCAE market in the past few years, as it takes too much time for bigger vendors to develop their own technologies and grow them up to cash generating products; they prefer acquiring existing proven technologies which have been validated thanks to smaller vendors. With the solid growth seen in this segment of the PLM market, more acquisitions are going to take place in the coming years.

Table of Contents

MCAE Global Market 2011   

1) PLM: Introduction and Definitions.   

2) MCAE Global Market   
2.1 History & Definition   
2.2 Market evaluation and growth rate   
2.3 Market evaluation per region: EMEA, NA, AP   
2.4 TOP 10 vendors worldwide offering MCAE products - 2006-2010   
2.5 Ranking of top 13 vendors worldwide, 2006-2010, by MCAE revenue   
2.6 Ranking of top 13 MCAE vendors worldwide, MCAE software & maintenance revenue only, 2006-2010   

3) MCAE Market Europe   
3.1 Market evaluation and growth rate   
3.2 TOP 13 PLM vendors Europe offering MCAE products - 2006-2010   
3.3 Ranking of top 13 MCAE vendors Europe, 2006-2010   
3.4Ranking of top 13 MCAE vendors Europe, software & maintenance revenue only, 2006-2010   

4) MCAE Market North America   
4.1 Market evaluation and growth rate   
4.2 TOP 11 PLM vendors in North-America, offering MCAE products - 2006-2010   
4.3 Ranking of top 11 MCAE vendors North America, 2006-2010   
4.4 Ranking of top 10MCAE vendors North America, software & maintenance revenue only, 2006-2010   

5) MCAE Market Asia-Pacific   
5.1 Market evaluation and growth rate   
5.2 TOP 11 PLM vendors Asia-Pacific,  offering MCAE products - 2006-2010   
5.3 Ranking of top 11 MCAE vendors Asia Pacific, 2006-2010   
5.4 Ranking of top 11 MCAE vendors Asia Pacific, software & maintenance revenue only, 2006-2010   

6) Comments & Outlook   

7) 01consulting Terms and Conditions   

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