Automotive Industry Reaffirms MSC.Software's Position as Industry Leader During Worldwide Automotive Conference; Speakers Unanimously Demonstrate the Value of Simulation Technology.

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 28, 1999--

MSC.Software's (MSC)(NYSE:MNS) Worldwide Automotive Conference held in Munich, Germany last week featured presentations from the world's leading automotive manufacturers and suppliers including; BMW, Ford, General Motors, Daimler-Chrysler, Volkswagen, Porsche, Audi, Volvo, Toyota, Nissan, DAF Trucks, Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries, Continental AG and NEC Systems Inc.

The conference was attended by more than 330 designers, engineers and management from every major automotive manufacturer worldwide.

"At this conference, we have seen the increasing importance and use of simulation among tier 1 and tier 2 suppliers, who recognize the benefits of simulation technology realized by every major automotive manufacturer worldwide," said Frank Perna Jr., MSC.Software's chairman of the board and CEO. "MSC.Software's commitment to the automotive industry was evident throughout this three day event."

Speakers and attendees of the conference agreed, "At Porsche, durability calculation on the basis of finite element results has become a standard approach, mainly in the field of chassis development. The system used by Porsche is MSC.Fatigue in combination with MSC.Patran," said Dr. Harald Baehr of Dr.Ing.h.c.F.Porsche AG.

Dr. Andreas Spielvogel of Continental AG discussed the efficiency increases in the tire industry resulting from the integration of design and analysis. Dr. Spielvogel addressed Continental's Computer-Aided Tire Engineering vision, highlighting "the future application of MSC.Patran will be used to halve the time of their present design-analysis process, while providing analysis tools to design engineers as well as power users."

"Brake Analysis and NVH (Noise, Vibration and Harshness) Optimization have become critically important areas of application in the Automotive Industry. Brake Noise and Vibration costs approximately $1 billion per year in warranty work in Detroit alone and is quickly becoming instrumental in driving the design process. MSC.NASTRAN is now being used to stabilize the brake system modes to eliminate brake squeal and to perform NVH optimization earlier in the design process," said Dr. Himanshu Misra, Advanced Technical Computing Center, NEC Systems Inc.

"BMW recently automated its approach to the optimization of spot weld designs. New processes were implemented using MSC.AMS, which helped to dramatically reduce the time spent in the actual modelling process. Time, quality, and data management for simulation of spot welds were simultaneously and dramatically improved by 40 to 50 percent," Daniel Heiserer, BMW AG.

About MSC.Software

MSC.Software is the world's leading supplier of simulation software to major manufactures worldwide. MSC.Software develops, markets and supports software tools that simulate the performance of a product design before manufacture. The ability to model and test software prototypes has cost effectively enabled manufnference visit www.mscsoftware.com/about/eventsrks belong to their registered owners.