Hot News: Ansys Buys Fluent
 

Ansys and Fluent today announced that Ansys will buy Fluent. For more information see the news announcement here at CFD Online.

What do you guys think about this? Will we finally get modern bug-free CFD codes, or does will the new deal create a dragon that will kill all innovation? Will the CFX code or the Fluent code survive the deal?

Re: Hot News: Ansys Buys Fluent
 

I'm quite curious how two competing codes can be owned by the same company? Does this mean that CFX will become part of Fluent? Secondly Fluent has Gambit/Tgrid as a mesh generator and Ansys has ICEM - Is Fluent going to do away with their mesh generator?

I'm not really keen on this because for as long as there was competition - all software developers were on their toes. Now 1 company has two CFD codes - Competition is being reduced. I think it's the customers who may lose out.

Re: Hot News: Ansys Buys Fluent
 

I got the news directly from Fluent's COO yesterday morning.

And it was really surprising for me, since I thought that ANSYS did its strategic buy already with CFX. Now I wonder what ANSYS will do with CFX, since two CFD-Codes with the same market target don't seem to be reasonable.

Further on the antitrust authority must still give its ok, I think. And maybe they ask ANSYS for selling CFX first ...

What I hope is that Fluent's activities on the bottle neck sector of grid-generation will not be given up with respect to ICEM, which already belongs to Ansys.

Re: Hot News: Ansys Buys Fluent
 

Cash rich giant buying market share through acquisition, not an uncommon strategy. Wonder if the strategy extends to software integration? They did a fast job getting CFX integrated with Design Space, maybe they've done it in such a way as to enable the grid/solver to be easily swapped out? Odds on that they'll keep the Fluent solver but incorporate the turbo machinery focus from CFX. Then retire, or at least not onwardly develop, CFX.

Yeh, the real fear is that such a monster company will not promote healthy innovation through competition. With the CFD vendor order now being Ansys->CD->Flomerics I wonder what form further vendor consolidation might take?

Re: Hot News: Ansys Buys Fluent
 

I think that the next big consolidation wave in the CAE sector will include the CAD companies. My guess is that in 10 years time we will be able to run both stress analysis and CFD (with high-end simulation tools) inside softwares like UniGraphics, ProEngineer and CATIA.

We might see some quickly improved integration between Ansys and Fluent, but after that I think a new code will be developed. Fluent is well on the way with their "next generation" flow solver so that might be used as a base, or perhaps they decide to scrap it all and start from new. Anyone familiar with the product generations in the Ansys family of codes? Have CFX got a "next generation" solver in the works already or are they still fine-tuning their current solver (which is a few years newer than Fluent's current solver)?

Re: Hot News: Ansys Buys Fluent
 

Ansys has not been historically very big on 'next generation' development since John Swanson left. They typically buy new things and then integrate them.

Re: Hot News: Ansys Buys Fluent
 

In fact, You don't need to be bothered about creating anything new if you have enough money to buy whatever you want. Ansys has swallowed his competitors buying the most known CFD softwares and now Ansys has got the monopoly desired. I'll not be surprised if in few years I see some message in this forum saying that Ansys bought Star-CD, Gila, Acusin, etc...

Re: Hot News: Ansys Buys Fluent
 

they could just call the product "CFD" and be done with it!

Re: Hot News: Ansys Buys Fluent
 

Yeah, the next step will be Ansys patenting the word CFD...

CFD-Online will have to pay royalties to Ansys or change his name (LOL)

Re: Hot News: Ansys Buys Fluent
 

NGCFD = next generation cfd ...

Re: Hot News: Ansys Buys Fluent
 

Dassault buying CD would be the obvious choice, failing that, Nika or BRNI.

Re: Hot News: Ansys Buys Fluent
 

well the rumour was that dasault were going for fluent (guess that one was a little wide of the mark) so maybe dss will turn their attention elsewhere

STAR-DSS maybe?? :p

Re: Hot News: Ansys Buys Fluent
 

Hands up who has had a pleasant working relationship with Dassult.

Re: Hot News: Ansys Buys Fluent
 

I feel buying and integrating of Fluent by Ansys would not be appreciable of good for CFD analysis

There should be rival products and Fluent has got a good amount of analysis capabilities as comapared to the otherr CFD products

Anyway its corporate decisions and money matters

We CFD users would love to have a ful fledged Analysis package hope so the ANSYS and Fluent comnbination would give us

Re: Hot News: Ansys Buys Fluent
 

Hope this does not become the windows of CFD . We might end up downloading patches.

Re: Hot News: Ansys Buys Fluent
 

As an ex adapco who spent two years at Northrop Grumman listening to designers curse Catia on an hourly basis I think cd-adapco and Dassault would be an amusing match. But its very unlikely that the French could Negotiate succesfully with the Big Mac. Dr Gossman perhaps but himself, unlikely.

Ah, this is when I miss John Chein's posts. Does it really matter whose bicycle we ride or some such....

Perhaps Dassault will make a modern move and incorporate OpenFoam, now that would be interesting!

- Andy R

Re: Hot News: Ansys Buys Fluent
 

CFX and Gambit will be in trouble i guess. Also job cuts in both organisations possible world wide.

Re: Hot News: Ansys Buys Fluent
 

There is no such thing as a bug-free code, no matter how much deveoplment and money is poured into it.

Re: Hot News: Ansys Buys Fluent
 

If one looks at history like Fluent purchasing FIDAP what will happen is that they will support multiple codes for a long time but slowly migrate users over to one code. The losing code will likely be kept around until all its unique features are transferred over. It does not make business sense to fully support 2 general purpose CFD codes.

I wonder if Fluent will be sold and supported through a reseller network like CFX?

Re: Hot News: Ansys Buys Fluent
 

Can some one who understands these numbers explain how a business that had revenues of $158M in 2005 can afford $560M ($300M cash, borrowing $200M from banks, balance in stock) to purchase a company that had $122M in revenues ? That seems like a lot to swallow ! Are these numbers real or are they inflated somehow?

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix....7813&highlight=

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix....7798&highlight=

Re: Hot News: Ansys Buys Fluent
 

I heard it takes about 3-4 weeks to feel comfortable when switching from one code to another. So to me, this has little effect. As a user, i hope this makes MAINTENANCE and package/software prices at least 30-40% cheaper. There. (And not more expensive in any thinkable way!)

Staffs in former two developers might experience downsizing obviously. If they can't jump to competitor company, where else can they go?

Scientists (or gurus) in charge of developing the foundation of crucial elements in the former codes however, are yet to feedback/react openly in here. Would they?

Business heads in the two companies, surely must be happy on their end I think or this wouldn't take place.

Anyway, there are too many CFD softwares out there. People keep on coming with so many codes like it's that easy and in line with market demand.

Re: Hot News: Ansys Buys Fluent
 

Jag, You have a very good question. Its a shell game where Ansys is a money printing machine. First of all they can use Fluent's own profits to pay back the bank loans over a couple of years. 2nd when you add Fluent's revenues to Ansys, instantly Ansys has larger total income and profits, which means that its stock is worth more, which means it can issue more stock or sell some and use that money either to pay off debt or buy yet another company. They have been doing this for years. They don't grow their products. They just keep buying companies and grow by adding another business. I don't believe the numbers are inflated. When anyone buys a business, they generally pay some multiplier of the annual revenue, usually the more profitable the business, the bigger the multiplier.

Re: Hot News: Ansys Buys Fluent
 

Some short considerations. The amount of the transaction is considerable, and the number of employees involved as well. It is sure, it is long time Ansys and Fluent were dealing with the acquisition, then the action by Ansys could not be so hostile as it appears.

Merging (by acquisition) of high technology companies competing in the same field is not a surprise: for example refer to the AspenTech and Hysys, for process simulators, some years ago (these softwares are still alive, perhaps thanks to the AntiTrust regulations). Anyway, except very rare cases, one of the main reasons is due to a contraction of the market, or to a market growth under the expectations.

The heart of such a companies are engineers and scientists, not raw materials or production plants: they are born and die when technical teams join and break. It should not be a surprise if a NewFluent... The crucial question is: Will Fluent's engineers sell themselves to the new owner?

Re: Hot News: Ansys Buys Fluent
 

If you believe that Fluent and Ansys are fast-growing and market-leading companies in an emerging field of technology then those valuations are not at all unrealisticly high. You can even say that they are quite low.

The average price/sales number in the tech sector is around 5 on Nasdaq I think. Microsoft has a price over sales just below 7! The S&P 500 index (a very wide index with all kind of companies) has an average price over sales just below 3.

If these valuations are realistic is another question of course, but that question should be asked about the whole stock-market.