New Possibilities with Search Based Applications for Enterprise and People

Paris, France – June 9, 2010 – Dassault Systèmes (DS) (Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA) a world leader in 3D and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions, and Exalead, a leading provider of Search Platforms and Search-Based Applications (SBA) for consumer and business users, today announced that Dassault Systèmes acquired the French company Exalead for about €135 million.

Every month, over 100 million people rely on Exalead for information search, access and reporting, including people in companies like Sanofi-Aventis and World Bank for business use, and Friendster, Lagardère Active and ViaMichelin for contextual consumer search.  Exalead provides the industry’s only platform designed from the ground up to apply advanced semantic processing to Web-scale data volumes and usage.  Exalead brings unique scalability, agility and usability to industries such as Banking, Retail, Publishing, Business Services, Life Sciences and Consumer Services where an easy access to information is essential.

"To accelerate the deployment of Search-Based Applications in all market sectors, we needed a strong international partner,” comments Alain Cotte, CEO, Exalead. “This alliance represents a tremendous opportunity for our partners and customers who will benefit from Dassault Systèmes’ global presence.”  Exalead Co-Founder François Bourdoncle adds, “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 world of innovation is everywhere and information intensive”, said Bernard Charlès, President & CEO, Dassault Systèmes. “Everyone is looking for simplicity with intuitive applications (“life-like”) which value the rich information available inside and outside companies. With Exalead and its partners, we can provide a new class of search-based applications for collaborative communities.” Bernard Charlès adds: “I would like to salute the critical role Qualis played in assembling such a great team with deep scientific skills, giving it the means to develop into a true leader in search technology and applications, and deciding to hand it to us to further its development on a worldwide level.”

Emmanuel Coste, Partner, Qualis, commented: “We are confident that the Exalead adventure will accelerate with Dassault Systèmes. It was not a light decision, but one we made with the deep understanding of the fit for Exalead within Dassault Systèmes we gained through the discussion and implementation of both a technological and a commercial partnership.”

A statement to which Yvan Proteau, Vice President, IS/IT, Yellow Pages Group, adds: “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.”

Paul Hermelin, Vice Chairman and Group CEO, Cap Gemini, comments: “With Exalead, DS has chosen the path of openness, ensuring full “as a service” flexibility for Enovia and opening up new opportunities for the development of high added-value business applications. This position is extremely promising for us. We were among the first to identify Exalead and its SBA model as a disruptive force in IT. We can already see the advantages of this union for our manufacturing customers, of course, but it is also clear to us that our customers in forward-edge sectors will benefit significantly from the synergy.”