The MCAD developers of today seem to be developing one or two tiers of software solutions to compete in theProduct Data Management (PDM), Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) revolution taking place today. On the first tier you have software PDM solutions designed to essentially manage a concurrent engineering environment using a local area network. They control things like vaulting, versioning, work flow, release cycles, baselines, etc. Some of the solutions of this level are PTC's Pro/Intralink, SolidWorks' PDMWorks, CATIA's Enovia (IBM product), etc. On the second tier you have products like PTC's PDMLink, CATIA's SMARTEAM (IBM product), Unigraphics' TeamCenter, and so forth. Solutions on this level are web-based and intended to do the same as the first tier, but with much more functionality and interoperability between additional software solutions that make up ancomplete system. Solutions on this level,generally known as'Enterprise Solutions,' facilitate enterprise wide collaboration, i.e., engineering, manufacturing, planning, publications,marketing, etc.
Comparing Pro/IntraLink with SMARTEAM is comparing a 1st tier solution to a 2nd tier solution. If you need a 1st tier solution, I would recommend staying with the software that's native to the CAD package, i.e., Pro/Intralink with Pro/Engineer, or PDMWorks with SolidWorks. If you need a 2nd tier solution, I would assess the future needs of the company, in terms of what CAD packages will need to be supported, and then select the 2nd tier solution that performs reliably.
While having a PDM solution (1st tier) for each CAD package is not a bad idea, having more than one 2nd tier enterprise solution will usually be more than what's needed.