what's CATIA? a consortium?
Yes, I am interested...what is it? I did a search, and it seems like some kind of job pool/CAD training thing...or is it software?
CATIA is CAD/CAM software that Boeing uses for design/machining/testing. CATIA is made by Dassault - the French aircraft maker - and marketed by IBM here in the US.
Years ago - when I was in the business of cutting parts for Boeing - the maintenance agreement for one seat of CATIA per year was $42K. That was Boeing's cost. And they had thousands of them. Talk about subsidizing your rivals. How hard would it be for the Frogs to put invisible spyware into that code, to know what Boeing is doing? Not hard at all.
CATIA is a 3d-solid modelling software system, extremely powerful. It was developed and marketed by IBM, but then sold to Dassault, who builds the Mirage fighter. Dassault has been acquiring lots of powerful software for industry.