AN ENGINEERING software firm has secured a half-a-million pound investment to expand its work in the oil and gas sector.

Tees Valley based Datum360, which provides Information Management (IM) and software consultancy services to the oil and gas sector has received a £500,000 investment from the £25m North East Technology Fund.

The fund, managed by IP Group, is one of seven under the banner of

of the £125m Finance for Business North-East super fund.

The investment will enable Datum360 to release a cloud-based offering, which the company believes will introduce new capability into the industry.

Formed in 2009 Datum360 works primarily in analysing and resolving issues around the management of complex engineering information on large capital projects.

It has been involved in projects around the world and its clients have included ConocoPhillips and BP.

Datum360 managing director Steve Wilson, who founded the business with Dave Mitchell, said: “The time is now right to accelerate the growth of the business.

“The business was set up to address gaps in the traditional information management practices that we saw in many projects.

“We knew there was a market for Datum360 for that reason and chose to be based on Teesside because of the strength of industry and the skilled workers that are here. As we grow, we hope to be able to capitalise on that.”

Nick Edgar, investment manager at IP Group in Newcastle, said: “Datum360 is a business which has built on the experience of its founders to devise much-needed solutions to challenges in the offshore IT sector.

“We are pleased to be able to support it at an important stage in its growth.”

Source:http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/business/9542052.Engineering_software_firm_Datum360_secures_new_investment/

Cyon Research Corporation today announced the opening of its 2012 Global Survey of Users of Engineering Software. The survey is open to employees of any firm that uses CAD, CAE, PDM, PLM, and/or BIM software for design, engineering, manufacturing, and or construction (generally known as “engineering software.”)

The 2012 Cyon Research survey explores users’ attitudes, expectations, and plans regarding the use of engineering software, as well as their view of their business outlook, their spending/hiring plans, and their expectations regarding changes or transitions in their engineering software mix.

Preliminary insights from the Cyon Research 2012 survey will be presented at COFES, the Congress On the Future of Engineering Software (http://cofes.com ) April 12-15, in Scottsdale Arizona. The detailed final survey report will be published in Q3 2012 and will be available for purchase from Cyon Research for $2,000.

Respondents from qualifying firms—firms that use engineering software, as mentioned above—can receive a copy of the survey results, for their personal use, at no cost.

Source:http://www.gisuser.com/content/view/25773/2/

Students seeking admissions in engineering courses will now be able to find out which college they can be reasonably sure of getting an admission. The Friends Union for Energising Lives (FUEL), a non-governmental organisation in the field of education, has developed a software tool where students can enter their entrance examination score and find out their tentative colleges based on the cut-off marks.

Cut-off marks are not openly known to students while they are filling the forms. It often becomes difficult for them to mark the colleges of their preference in the admission forms. This software tool, which will be free to use, would help them sort out their preference colleges, said Ketan Deshpande, founder of FUEL.

The engineering admission takes place through the centralized admission process based on their score in the entrance examinations, such as the Maharashtra centralised entrance test as well as the All Indian engineering entrance examination.

“To claim admission through centralised process, students have to specify up to 30 preferences of colleges in the form. The computer-aided system allots them one college out of these preferences, if that student has secured marks more than the cut-off marks of that college,” said Deshpande.

“Students have no idea about the colleges they can be sure of getting admission to and apply based on their own perceptions. Many of them lose out on admissions in good colleges and land up in the ones that were not their first choices. They need to know the right colleges before they fill up their forms,” he said.

Students can use the free software tool to find out the colleges they can be reasonably sure of getting admission. They will have to enter their marks and personal details and simply walk away with a print out of cut-off marks of all colleges. Keeping the rural students in mind, we have developed the helpline software in such a way that one can access it without an email address. It provides last three year’s cut-offs and minute details of engineering colleges of Maharashtra.

“This is definitely a good initiative. Filling college preferences is a very tricky job while submitting forms. Students do not know what the cut-off of a particular college would be. This tool can at least help us identify what range of colleges would our marks fit into, said Soham Rane, a std XII student.”

An official from the common admission process, said, “The software is not official. It may just be an indication of the colleges that students might secure admissions to.” The tool is available on the FUEL website.

Source:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/pune/Software-to-help-students-with-choice-of-engineering-college/articleshow/11772826.cms