Yesterday, Dassault Systemes, a public company headquartered in Paris, France, announced that it has acquired search engine company Exalead, also a French company, for 135 million Euros. The press release is here. Information professionals are particularly fond of Exalead because of its NEAR command. However, Exalead has always regarded its general web search engine more as an advert for its enterprise version than as a standalone search engine. With Dassault as the new owner, I wonder how much will change with the availability of Exalead as a search engine for those of us not within the walls of one of its customers. I’d like to know what Dassault’s President and CEO Bernard Charles meant by “a new class of search-based applications for collaborative communities.” I’m hoping he’s extending that to the free web.