Claas to Expand Global Leadership Position with PLM Solutions from IBM and Dassault Systèmes

Agricultural equipment leader reinforces its commitment to PLM to drive product innovation and support global expansion

Paris, France, March 14, 2006 – IBM and Dassault Systèmes (Nasdaq: DASTY; Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA) announced today that Claas, an international market and technology leader in agricultural equipment, has chosen their Product Lifecycle Management solutions (PLM) to reinforce its leading innovative position.

Exceeding customer expectations and offering an extensive portfolio of efficient and high-quality agricultural machinery has enabled Claas to achieve double-digit growth in recent years. With the integration of Renault Agriculture, the Claas Group has strengthened its position as a global and comprehensive provider of innovative agricultural machinery, including tractors. Last year, 70% of global sales revenues were generated abroad, and Claas’ objective is to grow even more internationally. It aims to start transforming its business to On Demand, to meet the needs of an industry challenged by fluctuating sales, due to weather conditions and changing government regulations. To gain even more business benefits from PLM, Claas has decided to expand its long-time partnership with IBM and Dassault Systèmes, to further transform and streamline its product development process.

The company has signed a multi-million euro international contract with IBM over the next three years covering IBM PLM solutions, from consulting to implementation of PLM Software CATIA, ENOVIA, DELMIA and SMARTEAM, developed by Dassault Systèmes. Consulting and implementation will be performed by IBM Business Consulting Services (BCS) and MDTVision, an IBM Services subsidiary.

As Claas has a strong focus on innovation, it wants to synchronize and integrate development of mechanical, electrical, electronics and software components more efficiently. Claas chose this integrated ‘mechatronics’ development approach using a SMARTEAM environment, and will manage complex projects and data with ENOVIA V5 integrated with the CATIA V5 design environment. The company will implement CATIA V5 at major sites in Germany and France, enabling engineering teams to remotely access product development data, thus sharing innovative ideas early in the product development process and accelerating it.

“By extending our innovation partnership with IBM and Dassault Systèmes, we will ensure our technological leadership in the international agricultural equipment market,” says Dr.-Ing. Hermann Garbers, Claas’s Chief Development Officer. “A major benefit of those new PLM solutions will be the increased ability to move development tasks ‘on demand’ to the most appropriate places in our global organization. This will also enable us to cooperate more closely with our customers and address their needs even faster, wherever they might be.”

“We are proud to help Claas strive for leadership in this highly innovation-driven segment that is going global and consolidating at the same time,” says Hervé Rolland, Vice President, PLM Solutions, Europe for IBM. “Claas has been successfully leveraging the business benefits of our PLM solutions for many years and thus achieved its current leadership position in Europe. With this enhanced cooperation, it will be able to move ahead of the competition ‘thinking globally and acting locally’.”

“The proven efficiency of our V5 PLM solutions for agricultural machinery will be further increased by the enhancement in the end-to-end product development processes that Claas is preparing” adds Denis Senpéré, vice-president, PLM North Europe, Dassault Systèmes. “Claas truly undertakes its PLM transformation with the right approach, starting from executive commitment and change management.”