I got newsletter from CFX today stating that they've definite agreement to acquire fluent. Despite Mr Cashman doesn't have ready cash to buy it. He hopes to raise it from ANSYSS shares. anyway, it'll make the CFX users have more choices than ever. But this will kill CFD market. Because we're heading towards monopoly as oppose free-market competitions. Now it scares new business comers like me in the market. Anything can happen ...

you email me if you've similar concerns and think the way forward. As the saying goes, if you can't compete then you join the winning team!!

This won't kill anything. There is still tne no.2 in the CFD market code around (STAR-CD) which can do roughly anything fluent can and a host of smaller codes in niche markets, government codes, open codes... While things may be less competitive, competition hasn't disappeared. I'm not sure why it would scare someone new in the market. There are still lots of choices.

I agree with TG. From what I've seen in the last few years, it's not the big names that make the breakthroughs anyway. Government codes or small niche codes come up with a really smooth way of doing something, and people see it and hit up the big codes to incorporate something similar (that was the progression of MDM, UDF, polyhedral meshing in Fluent 6.3, etc). As long as universities and other research organizations are still working on new models, there will always be growth in the CFD market. And none of this was to put down the big 3's ability to come up with models on their own, but it seems from my experiences that the small guys have fresh eyes and can at least come up with the basics for an idea. Then the big guys have to work how to implement it into their code, which is no small feat either.

I really don't see any reason for anyone to worry about the future of CFD. As long as research is still being done, there will always be improvements. Even if there was a monopoly of commercial codes, that wouldn't put a stop to the research, and the commecial code would still have to incorporate these improvements or risk being brought down by a free NASA or University code.

Just MHO though. Jason