Company: Altair Engineering, Troy, MI
Entry Submitted By: Airfoil Public Relations
Company Description: Altair Engineering, Inc. empowers client innovation and decision-making through technology that optimizes the analysis, management and visualization of business and engineering information. Privately held with offices worldwide, Altair has a a 26- year track record for high-end software for engineering and computing, enterprise analytics solutions, and innovative product design and development
Nomination Category: Company / Organization Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Company of the Year - Computer Software

Nomination Title: Altair Engineering

Tell the story about what this nominated organization achieved since January 1 2011 (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

Altair has a mission to empower innovation and decision-making through technology that optimizes the analysis, management and visualization of business and engineering information. Throughout 2011, Altair strengthened its position in the global market through its breadth of offerings and steady growth, with revenues exceeding $200 million – up more than 20 percent from 2010. This propelled Altair to the top spot as the world’s largest privately held computer-aided engineering software development company, largely accelerated by the significance of advanced technology in design, engineering and manufacturing strategies worldwide.

One driving force behind Altair’s rapidly growing global presence is the company’s flagship CAE software suite, HyperWorks. Version 11.0 was released in June 2011 with extended capabilities that provide best-in-class tools encompassing the entire simulation process: modeling, analysis, optimization, visualization, reporting and collaborative knowledge management.

The software suite incorporates Altair’s unique, patented licensing model, featuring a pay-per-usage, token-based system that allows users to purchase and use HyperWorks Units (HWUs) to access capabilities of the software – a game-changer that has significantly altered the economics of software investment for customers. In addition, HWUs can be used to leverage the HyperWorks Partner Alliance, a network that allows customers access to third-party applications that they can utilize without additional cost.

In 2011, Altair also introduced HyperWorks On-Demand (HWOD), a software solution that meets a widespread challenge experienced throughout numerous industries – the fluctuating demand for computing resources. Supported by the Altair licensing system, HWOD is scalable and presents users with a single, intuitive solution. It allows customers to gain tremendous value from software investments – in this case, a pool of HWUs – by enabling them to access the suite’s infrastructure in the cloud. In addition, HWOD supports multi-tenancy, where each customer (tenant) gains access to dedicated resources within a secure environment. The HWOD platform also uses the HPC workload management capability of Altair’s PBS Professional, as well as state-of-the-art job scheduling, monitoring and analytics tools.

In addition to the success HyperWorks and HyperWorks On-Demand bring to the Altair product portfolio, Altair’s breadth of solutions continues to play a vital role in enabling and strengthening innovation. The Altair Product Design team, a powerful blend of the company’s people and technologies, demonstrates the impact of its domain expertise through projects like BUSolutions. Unveiled in September 2011, BUSolutions relied heavily upon Altair’s OptiStruct technology – a finite-element based technology for conceptual design synthesis and structural optimization. The program created the world’s first series hydraulic hybrid transit bus, which boasts fuel economy results 110 percent better than conventional diesel buses and 30 percent better than leading diesel-electric hybrid buses, and is 10 percent lighter than market peers. This project leveraged Altair software products and is one example of a revolutionary outcome attributed to optimization technology.

As Altair continues its momentum during this dynamic period in both CAE and the industry at large, its software solutions and depth of innovation continue to demonstrate the success that advanced technology can spark for customers worldwide.

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Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader of this nominated organization:

James R. Scapa is the chairman and CEO of Altair Engineering, Inc., and is responsible for overseeing the strategic direction and business development of Altair, its products and services. He has served as CEO for more than 26 years since co-founding the company in 1985 with an initial $1,500 investment. Under Scapa’s leadership, Altair has cultivated its intellectual properties to penetrate new markets and extend product and service offerings. The company now has more than 4,000 corporate clients, more than 1,600 employees and offices throughout North America, South America, Europe and Asia/Pacific.