Bentley and its Software Users ‘Work Smarter Together for Integrated Projects’ Through the ‘V8i Advantage’

EXTON, Pa. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — June 7, 2011 — Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading company dedicated to providing comprehensive software solutions for sustaining infrastructure, held its annual Be Together: The Bentley User Conference May 23-26, 2011, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.A. This highly interactive conference, whose theme was “Sharpen Your Edge,” gave Bentley users the opportunity to advance their skills, network with their peers, and gain competitive advantage in the marketplace as they attended multidisciplinary sessions and workshops – choosing from among the more than 350 available in nine conference tracks. The tracks included Roads and Bridges, Building, Structural, Water, Geospatial, Utilities and Communications, Plant, AssetWise, and MicroStation and ProjectWise. Guided by Bentley product experts and power users, attendees acquired knowledge crucial to the adoption of information-modeling best practices as they earned Bentley Institute Learning Units (with over 450 available, including some qualifying for AIA CEUs) to maximize return on time invested in professional development. In keynotes, CEO Greg Bentley and SVP Bhupinder Singh highlighted new innovations in the company’s V8i portfolio of software – innovations that empower Bentley and its users to “Work Smarter Together for Integrated Projects.” And the Be Together LIVE Zone provided an interactive exhibit and demonstration area that brought people and technology together in a series of interest-specific zones to test drive software and hardware from Bentley and its growing community of technology partners.

Focusing on the “whys” of Bentley Systems’ Be Together announcements, Greg Bentley addressed the following in his keynote:

• Bentley Systems’ 2010 performance highlights,
• enhanced learning,
• the AECOsim product family, including AECOsim Compliance Manager, AECOsim Building Designer, and AECOsim Energy Simulator,
• GeoStructural products,
• the V8i release of gINT geotechnical data management software,
• ProConcrete software,
• Raceway and Cable Management V8i software,
• a joint collaboration with Tekla Corporation furthering interoperability,
• enhanced cloud provisioning,
• integrated software delivery and the V8i compatibility commitment,
• integrated software delivery and Windows 7,
• Bentley’s support strategy,
• commercial aspects of working smarter together,
• the three “C’s” of integrated project delivery – collaboration, context, and continuity,
• “handovers” from construction to operations that are “hands-on.”

Focusing on the “hows” of Bentley’s Be Together announcements, Bhupinder Singh addressed the following in his keynote:

• the V8i portfolio’s ongoing SELECTseries releases that prioritize delivering for Bentley users the “V8i advantage” comprising intuitive modeling, immersive design, intrinsic 3D, and incredible performance, along with interoperability supporting workflows that incorporate software from multiple vendors, data reuse, and compatibility across all of Bentley’s discipline-focused applications;
• new innovations from Bentley that extend the V8i advantage, including design synchronization, building simulation, hypermodels, mobility, markup synchronization, PDF orchestration, point cloud management, transmittals, and scalable terrain models.

Greg Bentley’s Keynote

Said Greg Bentley to the architects, engineers, constructors, geospatial and operations professionals, and CAD managers gathered for the first keynotes of the week, “We don’t think it is possible for you to work harder. Based on our SELECTservers, since the downturn, the number of hours ‘worked’ per week for each of our user licenses has grown almost 50 percent. A better idea for us all would be to work smarter, together. Bentley’s V8i portfolio presents our cumulative investment and opportunity to work smarter. It starts with our MicroStation platform for design and modeling, our ProjectWise platform for project team collaboration and work sharing, and our AssetWise platform for asset operations, which together underlie our information modeling applications for integrated projects across simulation and then construction and operations.”

During his keynote Greg reported on:

• the company’s market share gain and growth beyond pre-2008 downturn revenues (on a constant currency basis);
• enhanced anytime, anyplace learning offered through the Bentley LEARN training subscription, which now includes 300 LIVE training courses in the virtual classroom and more than 1,800 OnDemand eLearning courses;
• the following new products, product enhancements, and products in Bentley’s early adopter programs:
  • AECOsim – This new product family uniquely provides interdisciplinary building design, analysis, and simulation software focused on helping architectural, engineering, and construction professionals deliver high performance, intelligent buildings. AECOsim enables best practices in integrated building systems design and performance simulation, and results in simulations that rigorously benchmark against design intention and accurately predict the performance of the delivered building. Bentley’s AECOsim Compliance Manager software as a service (SaaS) for LEED certification is immediately available. AECOsim Building Designer and AECOsim Energy Simulator are currently in the course of Bentley’s early adopter programs, through which software becomes field-proven and refined based on input from Bentley users; these products will become broadly available during the remainder of the year.
  • GeoStructural Analysis and Advanced GeoStructural Analysis products – With the release of these offerings, Bentley Systems brings a new category of software tools to surface and subsurface project work. The software paves the way for the inclusion of geotechnical and geoenvironmental considerations in integrated project workflows and decision making. The scope includes capabilities for the design and analysis of walls, slope stability, sheeting, piling, footings, abutments, soil pressures, settlement, as well as finite element analysis and tunneling and ground analysis.
  • gINT V8 i geotechnical data management software – Enhancements to Bentley’s gINT for subsurface projects afford users the “V8 i ” advantage, including geospatial context for geotechnical data management within ProjectWise .
  • ProConcrete – Bentley’s ProConcrete is ideally suited for modeling, detailing, and scheduling reinforced cast-in-place and precast concrete structures. It delivers 3D data to seamlessly integrate and connect engineering design data all the way through to fabrication. This, in turn, provides the ability to link all design data to be cohesively shared across CAD platforms and other engineering disciplines.
  • Raceway and Cable Management V8 i – Still in Bentley’s early adopter programs, this is the most comprehensive software available for designing, modeling, and documenting raceway and cable systems for large plant and manufacturing facilities and electric utility substations. It provides integrated 2D and 3D design functionality that encompasses all project phases, from the earliest concepts to completion and handover. Built-in intelligence provides automation of manual and error-prone tasks including routing cables, calculating cable lengths and raceway fill, generating accurate material quantities, and providing error-free construction documentation.
• a joint collaboration to improve interoperability between Tekla Structures BIM software and Bentley’s Integrated Structural Modeling (ISM) methodology;
• enhanced cloud provisioning capabilities, such as ProjectWise OnLine , now available through Bentley’s Professional Services organization that complement new strategies involving mobile devices for team collaboration and typically include hybrid deployments.