AUBURN HILLS – Late Monday night, Dassault Systemes, which has an automotive office and its DELMIA brand headquarters in Auburn Hills, announced its intent to purchase IBM’s PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) group for $600 Million. The deal brings 700 new employees to Dassualt and 1,000 named accounts including companies such as Ford and Chrysler.

The sale to Dassault, which makes software for computer-aided design and product management, removes one of the last vestiges of IBM’s once vast applications-software business. The two companies will retain a formal alliance in which the French company will recommend IBM services and infrastructure software. The deal is the largest in Dassault history.

IBM helped start computer-assisted design, or CAD, with a program used to design autos and airliners called Cadam. But it sold it to Dassault in 1992 as part of a plan to focus on other software and become a partner with applications-software providers instead of a competitor.

At the time, IBM retained a 700-person sales organization that worked exclusively on selling Dassault products, sharing profits and deriving related servicing work.

The arrangement helped Dassault products gain credibility with IBM’s big corporate customers, but Dassault has made more inroads with these customers lately, and has been eager to expand its business lines.

Maynard Um, an analyst with UBS said in a research report that IBM’s Dassault business has been declining in part because customers apparently were shifting to deal directly with Dassault. In the first half of this year, sales were $362 million, down 30 percent from the prior year.

Dassault, based in Velizy-Villacoublay, France, has grown to be one of the largest software companies in Europe, and IBM handles less than one-third of its sales today, Bernard Charles, Dassault’s CEO, said in a conference call.

Charles said the purchase will be enable Dassault to simplify its relationship with customers like Boeing Co. and Ford Motor Co., which currently have related contracts with both IBM and Dassault. The deal is scheduled to close in the second quarter next year.

Charles said Dassault will now operate as a partner with IBM. IBM will also provide financing for Dassault customers if needed. He said the company will also continue to work with IBM rivals when customers request it.

Over the past decade, CAD tools have evolved into more-complex software that manage product development from initial engineering, through manufacturing, maintenance, warranty records, spare-parts management and recycling. Charles said that has expanded the business away from the heavy industrial customers that IBM concentrated on. He said “the question was, would Dassault invest or would IBM invest” in reaching into new industries.

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