much on references to primary sources . please improve this by adding secondary or tertiary sources . june 2016 learn how and when to remove this template message not to be confused with 3d systems . dassault syst mes se type societas europaea se traded as euronext dsy otc pink dasty industry cad cam cae plm software founded 1981 ; 35 years ago 1981 headquarters v lizy villacoublay france key people bernard charl s president and ceo charles edelstenne chairman products 3d design software 3d digital mock up and product lifecycle management plm revenue 2.839 billion 2015 1 operating income 633.2 million 2015 profit 402.2 million 2015 total assets 6 311.4 million end 2015 total equity 3 468.5 million end 2015 number of employees 13 974 parent dassault group website www.3ds.com dassault syst mes english d so ; french pronunciation da so ; abbreviated 3ds the 3dexperience company is a european multinational software company that develops 3d design 3d digital mock up and product lifecycle management plm software . contents 1 history 1.1 cad cam period 1.2 plm period 1.3 key dates 2 brands 3 products 4 passion for innovation program 5 dassault syst mes campus 5.1 european headquarters 5.2 american headquarters 5.3 asian headquarters 6 corporate information 6.1 holdings 6.2 company management 6.3 financial data 6.4 market data 7 see also 8 references 9 external links history edit dassault syst mes nyse euronext dsy is a subsidiary of the dassault group created in 1981 by avions marcel dassault to develop a new generation of computer aided design cad software called catia . the french government a shareholder since 2001 sold a 15.74 % stake in the company for 601 million in 2003 . 2 the dassault group in 2011 held 42.2 % 3 shares . dassault syst mes moved its corporate headquarters from suresnes to velizy villacoublay in november 2008 . this new european headquarters located in the south western suburbs of paris is commonly called 3ds paris campus . another campus was established in 2011 in waltham massachusetts west of boston united states and is called 3ds boston campus . dassault syst mes develops and markets plm software and services that support industrial processes by providing a 3d vision of the entire lifecycle of products from conception to maintenance . dassault syst mes customers are companies in the following industries aerospace & defense architecture engineering and construction consumer goods distribution fmcg distribution energy and processes finance and corporate services high technology industrial equipment life sciences marine & offshore natural resources and transport & mobility . citation needed dassault syst mes was a signatory to the french small medium enterprise business development pact sme pact in may 2008 . cad cam period edit dassault syst mes was incorporated in 1981 but in fact started in 1977 with 15 engineers from avions marcel dassault led by francis bernard aircraft design engineer who were in charge of providing support for the aircraft building process . while they were initially supposed to develop a 3d computer aided design software catia then called cati just to help create designs the engineers broadened the mission s scope to providing help to other industrial sectors . citation needed at the end of 1980 the rumours surrounding catia reached the very top of the company and marcel dassault then aged 88 asked for a demonstration of the software capabilities . 4 the company management understood the engineers vision and started to discuss how to leverage their innovation . 4 they quickly realised they could not afford to keep and develop this invention internally and decided to create a new company led by francis bernard to explore the computer aided design and computer aided manufacturing market cad cam . dassault syst mes thus got started in 1981 with only one customer avions marcel dassault and 25 engineers who didn t know how to sell or commercialize their product . 5 since dassault was one of the major clients of ibm in france an agreement was negotiated for ibm to sell catia . it was a non exclusive licence with 50 50 revenue sharing where catia would be sold by ibm as an ibm product . this agreement was extremely successful for both companies and it is considered one of the fundamental success factors in the history of dassault syst mes . 5 catia started getting noticed in other sectors outside of aeronautical design notably in the automotive industry 6 bmw mercedes and honda . the company used a step by step approach to get a start in other industries such as consumer goods machinery and shipbuilding . ibm itself became a customer in the mid 1980s and deployed catia in its engineering and manufacturing plants . 7 over the years dassault syst mes improved its software and expanded to the us japan and germany . this rapid growth triggered a chain of products acquisitions and partnerships beyond the company s core 3d cad cam software and led to what is known today as dassault syst mes . plm period edit by the end of the 20th century cad cam had become too restrictive to be identified with dassault syst mes products . then in the early 2000s it was replaced by plm the acronym for product lifecycle management . 8 new brand names were added to address the full plm spectrum delmia to support manufacturing enovia to support internal and external collaboration simulia for analysis and simulation solidworks for 3d modeling and 3dvia for 3d visualization . in 2007 along with the creation of the new brand 3dvia dassault syst mes started to get into online applications . plm 2.0 was released linked to the web 2.0 network as a platform concept . the company used the advantages of the internet and introduced online plm with its version 6 platform . 8 this strategy was also followed by many other acquisitions such as the 2010 exalead purchase to plunge deeper into internet search technologies the 2012 netvibes purchase to monitor social media through dashboards the 2012 gemcom purchase to model and simulate the planet and the 2013 simpoe for plastic injection simulation . in the same year dassault syst mes announced its first employment safeguard plan under the law of social modernisation of 17 january 2002 as a result of its closure of its research laboratory in grenoble . 9 key dates edit 1981 dassault syst mes incorporation . 1992 dassault syst mes acquired cadam a 2 dimensional cad cam software from ibm and incorporated dassault syst mes americas corp. 1997 dassault syst mes acquired solidworks a developer of mechanical design solutions . 10 1998 dassault syst mes purchased ibm product data management pdm assets and established enovia corporation 11 1999 dassault syst mes acquired israeli company smart solutions ltd. developer of smarteam a pdm workflow software which later also developed teamworks an integrated workflow solution for solidworks . 12 2000 the delmia brand was launched in order to address the digital manufacturing domain following a series of three acquisitions including i deneb robotics a u.s. company specializing in robotic simulation ii safework a canadian company specializing in human modeling technology and iii eai delta a german company specializing in manufacturing process management software . in the same year dassault syst mes also acquired spatial technology a u.s. company developing and selling software components including acis . 2002 geometric and dassault syst mes established a joint venture called 3dplm software solutions ltd. which was set up with an equity participation of 58 % and 42 % respectively . 2005 dassault syst mes acquired abaqus inc. 13 and from it creates the simulia brand . in the same year it also acquired virtools sa . 2006 dassault syst mes acquired matrixone inc. to create the next generation of its enovia brand . 14 in the same year dassault syst mes also acquired dynasim ab a swedish company specializing in modeling and simulation software for embedded systems in connection with the development of its catia systems strategy . 2007 dassault syst mes launched the 3dvia brand and at the same time acquired seemage 15 a leader in the creation of 3d interactive product documentation and from it launches the 3dvia composer product line . virtools is added to the 3dvia brand and becomes 3dvia virtools . in the same year dassault syst mes also acquired icem ltd a uk company well known in the automotive industry for its styling surface modeling and rendering software . 2010 dassault syst mes acquired exalead inc. 16 in the same year it also acquired ibm s sales and support force all support contracts and around 700 employees for the plm product lifecycle management software business . 2011 dassault syst mes acquired intercim llc and enguinity plm . 17 18 2011 dassault syst mes and gehry technology signed an agreement allowing each of them to sell the product digital project through their own sales channels . 19 2012 dassault syst mes acquires netvibes . 20 21 2012 dassault syst mes acquires gemcom . 22 2013 dassault syst mes acquires fe design 2013 dassault syst mes acquires safe technology limited 2013 dassault syst mes acquires simpoe 2013 dassault syst mes acquires apriso . 23 2014 dassault syst mes acquires accelrys and combines it with bioplm to create the biovia brand . 24 2014 dassault syst mes acquires quintiq . 25 2015 dassault syst mes acquires modelon gmbh . 26 2015 dassault syst mes changes legal status to european company societas europaea 27 2016 dassault syst mes acquires 3dplm software solution ltd. 28 2016 dassault syst mes acquires ortems . 29 2016 dassault syst mes acquires cst . 30 brands edit this article contains content that is written like an advertisement . please help improve it by removing promotional content and inappropriate external links and by adding encyclopedic content written from a neutral point of view . july 2015 learn how and when to remove this template message catia 31 the world s leading brand for product design and experience was dassault syst me s initial product . it is the plm solution for 3d collaborative creation . catia addresses the product development process from early product concept specification through to product in service . solidworks products span 3d mechanical design software simulation product data management and collaboration . they are generally offered as a suite of products scaled to the customer s needs . customers can choose to add other solidworks products providing additional simulation and pdm capabilities . they are used by companies in the machinery medical consumer tool and die electrical and power sectors and by suppliers to the aerospace and automotive industries . delmia is a factory simulation software which resulted from the acquisition of deneb delta and safework . delmia is the company s plm digital manufacturing software . it allows manufacturers to virtually define plan create monitor and control all production processes from the early process planning and assembly simulation to a complete definition of the production facility and equipment . enovia is for collaborative management and global life cycle plm with the historical vpm virtual product management and its successor vplm as well as dmu which came from the smartteam and matrixone acquisitions . enovia provides a framework for collaboration for company s plm software . it is an online environment that involves creators collaborators and consumers in the product lifecycle . simulia for virtual testing and simulation was a result of the acquisition of abaqus in 2005 . simulia automates standard simulation processes and can be deployed across any organization distributing workload across the computing resources and managing the simulation results to improve collaborative decision making . it is designed to meet companies needs for realistic product and process simulation software and to make realistic simulation more readily accessible through integrated and collaborative simulation applications . 3dvia s objective is to bring 3d technology to new users businesses and consumers . the company s 3dvia portfolio has a