This yearÝs ÙBentley EmpoweredÝ (BE) Conference was held in downtown Los Angeles.
Martyn Day attended to both judge the companyÝs Excellence awards and get the latest Bentley strategy.

Rogers Stirk Harbour PartnersÝ Leadenhall Building scooped first prize in the BIM for Architecture category. Image courtesy of Cityscape/British Land.

BentleyÝs User conferences are always big affairs and were historically held in the companyÝs home town of Philadelphia. But for a number of years now the event has toured the United States, landing at Baltimore, Atlantic City, Orlando and Charlotte. This year it was its first west coast destination, Los Angeles, in the Staples convention centre. I canÝt help but think that being a Bentley customer is a great way to see the US and now also Europe. Last year saw BE come to Prague for a European leg and this year London is the host city. However, thereÝs little time for sightseeing as the company always lays on almost a weekÝs worth of keynotes, training and demonstrations - everything you wanted to know about MicroStation and more!

Bentley is a company that keeps a fairly low profile, so for those of you that donÝt know much about the company, it is one of the largest privately owned software companies in the US, with revenues of almost $400 million, and the Bentley brothers, of which there are more than a few all take active roles. Greg Bentley is CEO, Keith Bentley is CTO and Ray and Barry Bentley are Executive VPs - the company also has 2,495 other employees.

Over the years Bentley has developed into the CAD company for Infrastructure. Nearly all the US State Department of Transports (DOTs) use Bentley products, the company dominates the Civils market, is a key player in Process and Plant, supplies the US Army Corps of Engineers, is big in railways and water treatment and mapping and Geo. Then, of course, especially in the UK, thereÝs AEC design especially in mid-sized firms and at signature architect level. By attending BE one really gets a great insight into the breadth of markets that Bentley competes in, and by taking part in the judging of the Bentley Excellence awards, I had additional exposure to the size and scale of projects that BentleyÝs customers undertake.

In his keynote speech Greg Bentley, CEO, introduced new technology, showcased customers and their projects from around the world, and gave a round up of the recent acquisitions.

Greg Bentley CEO

And so having given you a little background, what did Bentley have to say to its customers? Greg BentleyÝs Keynote kicked off with an examination of the increased productivity of its users, tying this into BentleyÝs relatively new On Demand learning and Institute services, allowing users to train where and when they want.

Greg Bentley announced ProjectWise V8 Passport, offering portable and global licenses allowing access to any ProjectWise client, desktop or web application. The aim is to reduce the costs of collaborating across multiple projects, when it has been based on a per-project model. ProjectWise V8 Navigator is a new review and analysis package for multiple file formats, in a ProjectWise Startpoint or ProjectWise Integration Server.

With the focus of the event clearly being BentleyÝs customers, Greg Bentley then literally went around the world, starting off in Los Angeles, highlighting a number of customers (many household names) and their projects, explaining how they managed to innovate and achieve better economic productivity. In his final round up, the CEO showed BentleyÝs acquisition momentum, as it buys up many of the specialist analysis firms. As Bentley predominantly operates a subscription model, licenses are the lifeblood of the company revenues, and again for the fifth consecutive year, subscriptions were up. A new and innovative company division, Bentley Direct, headed up by former Chief Marketing officer, Tony Flynn, has been established to sell to new and existing customers. Bentley has few dealers and tends to sell direct, this new division is a more volume approach using the latest web and electronic technologies.