2011 Be Together: The Bentley User Conference ‘Keynote Report’
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2011 Be Together: The Bentley User Conference ‘Keynote Report’

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:

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

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:

Turning to new innovations from Bentley Systems in integrated software delivery, Greg said, “With so much of our portfolio needing to work together within complete solutions on your projects, it’s important for us to work smarter together in software delivery. Our V8i compatibility commitment is unique in the marketplace and important to you. In particular, we certify compatibility across any and all of the V8i application formats, so you can mix and match any V8i products across our SELECTseries.”

This, he added, allows users to establish independent SELECTseries release pacing for each product, providing them with a ramp of continuity going forward. As a result, a user can employ, for example, MicroStation V8i (SELECTseries 2), InRoads V8i (SELECTseries 1), and ProjectWise V8i (SELECTseries 3) as part of the same solution with complete interoperability. This contrasts with the strategies of vendors that force users to upgrade all of their software across projects every year, requiring them to work harder and to risk incompatibilities, without substantial gains.

Integrated software and its delivery from Bentley Systems are also benefiting from significant new capabilities of Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system. Greg explained that Microsoft Windows 7 has expanded the V8i advantage to include “immersive design,” by way of:

He then announced a new phased support strategy corresponding to Microsoft’s operating system cycles. Bentley’s Windows 7-specific development and support will be for V8i only, including in the case of forthcoming 64-bit editions of its products. Microsoft has already deprecated Windows XP support and will retire it in 2014. Bentley will not support Bentley software running on retired Microsoft operating systems, and will truncate support for V8/2004 in 2014.

On commercial aspects of working smarter for integrated software delivery, Greg highlighted:

Greg next discussed how Bentley’s integrated software delivery can help users take advantage of opportunities to provide better performance (and return on owners’ investments) through integrated project delivery, in which – irrespective of contractual format – information modeling adds value at each project phase, enabling participants to work smarter, together. Integrated projects, he said, meet three characteristic requirements – collaboration, context, and continuity – and he reviewed respects in which Bentley Systems addresses each by providing:

                              --   hypermodels – the revolutionary innovation to interact with required 2D drawings in their appropriate 3D context, navigating callout links to enhance and clarify the 3D model, which serves as a spatial index to all project information;
                              --   apps for mobile devices (such as the iPad) to immersively access – now from anywhere – design and construction model information, and to provide synchronized feedback of markups and field status;
                              --  

dynamic collaboration, design synchronization, and iterative project review empowered by ProjectWise for Construction and ProjectWise for Revit Users – packaged offerings that include Bentley Navigator V8i, setup and configuration, training, and support;

                              --  

construction workface planning with open interfaces to the major plant engineering applications, now fully leveraging ProjectWise V8i and Bentley Navigator V8i, through the newly released ConstructSim V8i;

                              --  

integrated fabrication workflows enabled by Bentley’s ProConcrete software and Integrated Structural Modeling apps;

                              --  

real-time standards-based information exchange – including manufacturers’ content from specifications and construction through commissioning – across systems achieving the ISO 15926 requirements of the iRING user community, available through software such as Bentley's OpenPlant V8i;

                              --   tighter “hands-on” workflows among design, engineering, and construction through new Bentley partner agreements with Norconsult, Motion Computing, SMART Technologies, Synchro Ltd., Tekla Corporation, Vela Systems, and Vico Software, Inc.

Greg concluded by reminding the audience that the ultimate objective of continuity is to produce intelligent assets for owners, which, he said, requires a handover from construction to operations that is hands-on as well. This can be facilitated with services such as Bentley’s eB Insight that are provided by Bentley’s AssetWise platform for asset operations and shared with Bentley’s ProjectWise platform for project team collaboration.

Bhupinder Singh’s Keynote

Bhupinder Singh presented an overview of the innovations that set Bentley apart from other software providers, including enhancements to the V8i product family. Said Bhupinder, “Greg has told you that to deliver integrated projects, you need solutions that enable collaboration, ensure continuity, and provide context. This is exactly what we had in mind when we launched V8i a few years ago. As a coordinated release of products and solutions, V8i was launched with a set of priorities that drive our innovations to provide you with advantages in intuitive modeling to help you move designs from concept to completion.”

He continued, “These innovations let you interact with 2D and 3D in an integrated and immersive manner, taking advantage of new touch screens and other hardware and software advancements. An intrinsic 3D platform-based geo-coordination allows you to take advantage of information from many sources and automatically geo-reference them. These innovations also help improve project performance. For example, the Delta File Transfer technology in ProjectWise V8i allows you to only transfer the part of the design that has changed between editing sessions, giving you a huge performance improvement when working with large files and datasets. And our commitment to interoperability helps your integrated projects exchange information with other tools and project participants seamlessly.”

He added that since the initial launch of V8i, Bentley has introduced SELECTseries releases of its products, each one of which has provided great new functionality and many new advantages. At the same time, each has stayed true to Bentley’s V8i compatibility commitment, which allows users to take advantage of everything Bentley has to offer in V8i. Bentley, he said, is continuing this commitment going forward with new SELECTseries releases.

The remainder of Bhupinder’s presentation focused on the following newly introduced innovations, each of which further extends Bentley’s V8i advantage:

Bhupinder ended his keynote with a look at upcoming innovations in Bentley’s Applied Research group. Among them were Point Clouds from Photographs, Point Clouds in Stereo, Instant Collaboration, Augmented Reality, and Sensor-Driven Generative Design. Attendees test drove these innovations in the LIVE Zone.

The LIVE Zone

The LIVE Zone featured offerings in modeling and analysis, visualization, knowledge resources, technology futures, collaboration, CAD management, intelligent deliverables, and operations. Be Together conference sponsors exhibiting in the LIVE Zone included:

For additional information about the products and services noted above, visit the following web pages:

AECOsim: www.bentley.com/AECOsim
AssetWise: www.bentley.com/AssetWise
Bentley Descartes V8i: www.bentley.com/bentleydescartes
Bentley LEARN Training Subscription: www.bentley.com/LEARN
Bentley Map V8i: www.bentley.com/BentleyMap
Bentley Navigator V8i: www.Bentley.com/DynamicCollaboration
Bentley SELECT Subscription: www.bentley.com/SELECT
ConstructSim V8i: www.bentley.com/ConstructSim
eB Insight: www.bentley.com/eBInsight
GeoStructural Analysis and Advanced GeoStructural Analysis: www.bentley.com/geostructural
gINT V8i: www.bentley.com/gint/whatsnew
InRoads V8i: www.Bentley.com/InRoads
Integrated Structural Modeling: www.bentley.com/ISM
iWare Apps: www.bentley.com/iWare
MicroStation V8i: www.bentley.com/MicroStation
ProConcrete: www.bentley.com/ProConcrete
ProjectWise for Construction: www.bentley.com/IntegratedProjectDelivery/specialoffers
ProjectWise for Revit Users: www.bentley.com/IntegratedProjectDelivery/projectwise+revit
ProjectWise V8i: www.Bentley.com/DynamicCollaboration
Professional Services: www.bentley.com/professionalservices
ProjectWise OnLine: www.bentley.com/ProjectWiseOnLine

About Bentley Systems, Incorporated

Bentley is the global leader dedicated to providing architects, engineers, geospatial professionals, constructors, and owner-operators with comprehensive software solutions for sustaining infrastructure. Bentley’s mission is to empower its users to leverage information modeling through integrated projects for high-performing intelligent infrastructure. Its solutions encompass the MicroStation platform for infrastructure design and modeling, the ProjectWise platform for infrastructure project team collaboration and work sharing, and the AssetWise platform for infrastructure asset operations – all supporting a broad portfolio of interoperable applications and complemented by worldwide professional services. Founded in 1984, Bentley has grown to nearly 3,000 colleagues in more than 45 countries and $500 million in annual revenues. Since 2001, the company has invested more than $1 billion in research, development, and acquisitions.

Additional information about Bentley is available at www.bentley.com and in Bentley’s annual report. For Bentley news as it happens, subscribe to an RSS feed of Bentley press releases and news alerts. To view a searchable collection of innovative infrastructure projects from the annual Be Inspired Awards, access Bentley’s Year in Infrastructure publications. To access a professional networking site that enables members of the infrastructure community to connect, communicate, and learn from each other, visit Be Communities.

To download the Bentley Infrastructure 500 Top Owners ranking, a unique global compendium of the top public- and private-sector owners of infrastructure based on the value of their cumulative infrastructure investments, visit www.bentley.com/500.

Bentley, the “B” Bentley logo, Be, Bentley SELECT, SELECT, MicroStation, ProjectWise, InRoads, AECOsim, eB, gINT, Bentley LEARN, ProConcrete, and ConstructSim are either registered or unregistered trademarks or service marks of Bentley Systems, Incorporated or one of its direct or indirect wholly owned subsidiaries. All other brands and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.