Avatechreprinted by permission of Ralph Grabowski, editor
May 16, 2003 Avatech Solutions is selling its PrescientQA software to TDCi, Avatech’s European distributor. "The sale of the PrescientQA software suite is part of our overall plan to create a refined focus in the middle-market design automation space," says Avatech CEO Scotty Walsh. Price was not announced. An interview earlier this year gave no indication that PrescientQA was not part of the company's future. "I wondered," I wrote back then, "what they were doing with the software they inherited from PlanetCAD. PrescientQA design monitoring software is a 'diamond in the dark,' replied Mr. Fischer, 'not a diamond in the rough'." In another part of the interview, Mr. Fischer called his company's recent agreement with EDS to sell non-Autodesk software "a profound change." The profound changes some more. In the last sentence of a press release, Avatech reports it terminated discussions with EDS, and that Avatech is no longer becoming an EDS PLM reseller of e-Factory and Teamcenter. Instead, Autodesk-superdealer Avatech turns to Dassault Systemes in the hopes of becoming an "integrated solutions provider" [reseller?] of SMARTEAM PLM, and a CAA V5 partner. The reason? "The agreement includes financial assistance from Dassault to accelerate the development of Avatech's PLM marketing, sales, and services team." Investment amount was not announced. That's the second former "competitor" Dassault is helping financially. Earlier this year, Dassault invested over CDN$22 million in PTC-friendly RAND Technologies. Last quarter, Avatech reported total revenue of US$6.7 million, but a net loss of $758,790. Other CAD Industry Select Articles | 
