Acquisition provides additional consultancy and training services, complementing Artisan’s market-leading UML, SysML and UPDM modeling tools
Washington DC, USA and Cheltenham, UK – 20th October 2009. Artisan® Software Tools, the world’s largest independent supplier of industrial-grade, collaborative modeling tools for complex, mission and safety-critical embedded systems and software, has acquired Brass Bullet Limited, a leading systems engineering consultancy based in Swansea in the UK. The acquisition is part of Artisan’s growth strategy and gives the company full ownership of Brass Bullet’s consultancy and training offerings in Software Design, Systems Engineering and Enterprise Architectures. The Brass Bullet team, including its core group of industry experts, will join the Artisan fold, bolstering Artisan’s professional services capability.
“This acquisition represents the next step in our ‘whole product’ strategy for systems engineers and enterprise architects” said Hedley Apperly, VP Marketing of Artisan Software tools. ”Closely synchronized with our recent launch of Artisan Studio 7.1 and its support for UPDM (Unified Profile for DoDAF and MODAF), this acquisition provides experienced specialists to help our customers achieve maximum productivity from UML, SysML and UPDM.”
In more detail, Artisan has acquired the Brass Bullet business, including all staff, training materials, intellectual property, offices and customer contracts. Brass Bullet’s tool-independent training courses cover requirements engineering, scenario modeling, architectures, systems engineering and UML, amongst others. Consulting services included competency assessments, best practices mentoring and process & methodology development, The directors include industry thought leaders, who are highly active within INCOSE (International Council on Systems Engineering), the BCS (British Computer Society) and the IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology). Brass Bullet will continue to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Artisan Software Tools.
“I am extremely pleased that Brass Bullet has joined the Artisan Software Tools group at such an exciting time in its growth.” commented Jon Holt, Managing Director of Brass Bullet Ltd. and now global Head of Systems Engineering for Artisan Software Tools. “We recognize Artisan as a world-class specialist, providing first rate tools and professional services to major engineering companies, and our long term vendor independence adds a wealth of firsthand experience helping the most demanding customers become successful. Artisan is seeing massive demand for its offerings, so we are very excited to be able to help both deliver our own services and provide our technical expertise for the Artisan family of products, so that Artisan can continue to grow and provide the best in class products and services.” he continued.
In addition to lecturing and consulting, members of the Brass Bullet team have authored numerous articles and books, which are testament to their depth of knowledge. These include “UML for Systems Engineering: watching the wheels”, Second edition, Jon Holt (2004), IEE, “A Pragmatic Guide to Business Process Modeling” 2nd Edition, Jon Holt (2009), BCS, “SysML for Systems Engineering”, Jon Holt & Simon Perry (2008), IET and “Modeling Enterprise Architectures”, Jon Holt & Simon Perry (planned 2010) IET.
“We are very excited by this acquisition as it is highly synergistic with our existing business,” said James B. Gambrell, President and CEO of Artisan Software Tools. “As a leading software tools vendor, we recognize the need for knowledgeable and independent-minded professionals to continually challenge our thinking, as a means to deliver valuable innovation to help our customers create real returns on their investments in modeling and development tools. Using our experts, with real-world systems engineering and enterprise architecture experience, lets our customers learn from the mistakes of others and leapfrog their competition.”
About Artisan Software Tools
Artisan® Software Tools is the world’s largest independent supplier of industrial-grade, collaborative modeling tools for complex, mission-critical systems and software. Artisan has delivered a stable, robust working environment to thousands of users across an extensive range of complex applications in demanding sectors including military, aerospace and defense, automotive and transportation, telecommunications and electronics, and medical. Artisan’s standards-based tool suite, Artisan Studio®, provides comprehensive support for the leading industry standards, including OMG SysML, UML and Architectural Frameworks. Artisan WorkbenchTM provides a fully integrated, collaborative engineering framework for the trouble-free deployment and maintenance of best-in-class tools for mission and safety-critical systems and software development. Artisan’s tools deliver on the promise of an integrated collaborative development environment – allowing systems and software engineering teams to Work as OneTM – from concept through to delivery, maintenance and support. Founded in 1997 with extensive venture capital backing, Artisan is headquartered in the USA and UK with offices in Germany and Italy, supported by a global distributor network. For more information visit: www.ArtisanSoftwareTools.com.
