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GISdevelopment > Events > Reports > 2002 Year | Reports | Add Events 2000 | 2001 | 2002 2002 Bentley International User Conference
A report by Sanjay Kumar and Maneesh Prasad
Bentley announces major technology developments at BIUC Bentley International User Conference 2002 began here on 19th May with about 3000 delegates from over 40 countries worldwide. Charles Ferrucci, Vice President, Corporate Marketing welcomed the delegates and dignitaries to the beautiful Atlantic City and introduced the agenda of the conference for week. He said that this year's agenda has been targeted in the field of Manufacturing plant, building, transportation, government and utilities. 
Corporate Direction 
Taking over from Charles, Greg Bentley, CEO of Bentley Systems presented the corporate and technological direction of the company. He said that we at Bentley are focusing on developing a comprehensive portfolio of all the applications of AEC and in the process completed the acquisition of MIDAS, Civil/Plotting/Raster, GEOPAK, Geo (Waste) Water, and Rebis. He emphasized on "Intensive” and "Extensive" leveraging of the products and services for providing a comprehensive solutions to the users. Bhupinder Singh, VP Content Publishing outlaid Bentley’s vision in the field of content management and publishing. He talked about Bentley Publisher, a server-based application that allows dynamic viewing project files and images from Web browsers. Together with “Digital ID” and “Digital Rights” the virtual management of projects where various executing and monitoring units are not physically located together will be possible.
Fundamentals of Corporate Philosophy Addressing press conference, Kieth Bentley, Chief Technical Officer of Bentley Systems emphasized on three fundamental aspects of the corporate philosophy. First one is ‘Select Programme’ which allows the customer to subscribe the software instead of buying it forever. This is very useful almost customers are switching over to this programme, in particular to large infrastructure companies who require a large number of license for a short period and less number of copies for longer period. Secondly, Bentley is going to focus on ‘Common Platform’, that is Microstation. All the applications are building around Microstation and it will continue to be only platform. Thirdly, Bentley is focusing on ‘Working Together’. It means entire range of products and solutions will be compatible to each other and work together. Pentagon Renovation Programme: Case Study 
One of the most important and exciting Keynote address of the day was presented by Mr. Walker Lee Evey, Programme Manager, Pentagon Renovation Programme Office. In his presentation he touched upon the issues of how technology and in particular maps and drawings created using Microstation were helpful in rescue operations during the 9/11 Terrorist attack on Pentagon. He informed that within 24 hours of the attack his team could locate the maps and drawings of the building, which helped a lot to undertake, not only rescue operations but also began rebuilding of the Pentagon. He emphasized that since we had database about the design and columns of the building, we could award US$ 15 billion order to rebuild the Pentagon within six days time after the attack. While addressing a Press conference, Walker Lee Evey said that Pentagon began using Microstation technology in 1990 and since onwards it is meeting Pentagon’s requirements very well. He also emphasized that under this renovation programme we are going to change entire drawings and maps of the buildings in digital media and there will be no paper drawing and maps. Answering to a query, he said that after 9/11, the lesson, which we have learned, is that technology can do more than we ever thought of and we need to work more closely and in partnerships mode with technology companies rather than in contractor mode.
ESRI - Bentley Partnership One of the important messages, which were signaled out by the key executives of Bentley, is likely partnership with ESRI in the field of high-end GIS analysis. An impression was given that Bentley is going to focus more and more on AEC and Geoengineering. With regard to GIS, Bentley is opting to focus on data capture, conversion, validation, and further passing the same to complete GIS System. It seems that for complete GIS system, Bentley is in touch with ESRI Inc., the leading GIS company and as per Jackie Sandgaard, Director Industry Marketing, International Telecommunication and Utilities, Bentley is in the process of collaboration with ESRI and they are presenting a joint paper in August 2002. Bentley in Asia Pacific 
GIS Development team discussed in length about the presence and focus of Bentley Systems in Asia Pacific Region. Speaking to GIS Development Ian Hemmings, Vice President, Bentley Systems Asia Pacific said that Asia Pacific holds key for Bentley and we are doing very well in this region. Bentley has shown decent growth in past few years with new customers joining the Bentley users segment from this region.
Regional Blocks in Asia Pacific: Bentley Systems operates in Asia pacific region through mainly four regional blocks. They are: South Asia South Asia operation is headquartered in New Delhi, India and Sandeep Srivastava is the Regional Director for the region. This region is basically dominated by India and it offers a large market for Bentley Systems. Bentley India has grown up to about 400% in previous two years in terms of manpower and operations. It has delivered very well in terms of business and the presence of Bentley is increasing strongly. India has been traditionally a big market for Bentley Geoengineering and mapping solutions. It has major installations of Microstation. Ian Hemmings sees immense potential of “Projectwise” in India, where the offshore jobs works are being offloaded. Projectwise offers the facility for the clients to monitor the progress of the work being executed on a continuous basis. With regard to AEC, India does not offer much opportunities and it is still mainly dominated by 2D drafting market whereas Bentley solutions are step ahead and focus on 3D modeling. With regard to marketing strategy, Ian Hemmings gives more emphasis on developing channel partners for the base product ‘Microstation’ whereas he feels that vertical products will continue to be marketed primarily by Bentley itself because it requires great degree of customer support where partners may not be effective to deliver valuable customer support. In terms of revenue from the region, Ian says that Bentley has invested quite heavily in past two years in the region and expects a very good growth from the region. China and Hong Kong China is quite similar to Indian market and it also offers a very big opportunity for Bentley. Although it is not as matured market for Bentley as India but still it has more potential. The market in China is more dominated by the Institutions, Government and Semi-Government organizations that are the major customers for these services. The market is more inward looking. Most of the large project with huge funding is generating ample opportunities for services within the country. Like India, China is also largely Microstation and geoenginnering based market and AEC is yet to be picking up for Bentley solutions due to its 2D drafting environment. Bentley has plans to restructure its marketing network in China with establishment of Master Distributors in China and further develop channel partner network for addressing the needs of this region. Australia and New Zealand Australia is the strongest market for Bentley in the region. Australia and New Zealand are quite mature market and brings the maximum revenue from the region. Although the region is saturated with regard to traditional solutions but it offers huge potential for vertical applications and AEC. The region is pretty much on 3D modeling and is very much ahead in this technology. The region is very much eager to adopt newer technology and hence V8 has great potential for Bentley. It will also help Bentley to tap the market of Autodesk. Subscription based license policy provides an edge to Bentley since it allows customers to buy the software for project phase only. South East Asia South East Asia actually did well for Bentley. This region is has mixed market if we look at AEC and Geoengineering. On the one side this region has territories like Singapore, which are very technology oriented and quite advanced and matured market. AEC is quite strong in Singapore. Singapore market was expected to shrink but it actually did not. It did fairly well for Bentley. On the other hand we have territories like Malaysia and Thailand, which are in working on both 2D and 3D environment. It has potential for both the traditional Microstation and V8 and projectwise. These territories is quite government driven. Indonesia is a big market with lots of potential, but the only concern is the stability of the region. Philippine is doing well for the Bentley. There is quite a similarity between Thailand and Philippines, except for the governance. Vietnam market is not shrinking at the moment for Bentley. Overall the region is doing ok for Bentley and has good potential in coming times. During the discussion Ian Hemmings did not touch in detail about Korea and Japan since these territories does not come under his command. Year | Reports | Add Events 2000 | 2001 | 2002 Related Sections Careers | Companies | News | Publications | GIS@development | Country Pages | Technology |
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