Type Private Products Software Revenue 625 million USD (2014) Chief information officer Claire Rutkowski CFO David Hollister | Industry Computer Software. Website www.bentley.com CEO Greg Bentley (Aug 2000–) Number of employees 3,000 Founder Greg Bentley | |
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Key people Greg Bentley, CEOKeith A. Bentley, Co-FounderBarry J. Bentley, Co-FounderRaymond B. Bentley, Co-Founder Headquarters Pennsylvania, United States Profiles |
Bentley Systems, Incorporated, is an American-based software development company that develops, manufactures, licenses, sells and supports computer software and services for the design, construction, and operation of infrastructure. The company’s software serves the building, plant, civil, and geospatial markets in the areas of architecture, engineering, construction (AEC) and operations. Their software products are used to design, engineer, build, and operate large constructed assets such as roadways, railways, bridges, buildings, industrial plants, power plants, and utility networks. The company re-invests 20% of their revenues in research and development
Contents
Bentley Systems is headquartered in Exton, Pennsylvania, United States, but has development, sales and other departments in over 50 countries. The company had revenues of $625 million in 2014.
Software
Bentley has three principal software product lines: MicroStation, ProjectWise, and AssetWise. MicroStation is a desktop 2D/3D CAD platform. Bentley Map is an extension from Bentley that runs on top of MicroStation adding GIS and spatial capabilities to the CAD program. ProjectWise is project information management and cloud collaboration AECO software for sharing project information. AssetWise is Bentley’s project risk management software to determine how safe are infrastructure assets, such as bridges, roads, power plants or offshore platforms.
Bentley is a provider of building information modeling (BIM) software, AECOsim Building Designer for the architecture, civil, structural, and mechanical and electrical engineering disciplines. Bentley also provides GenerativeComponents, a parametric modeling product used primarily by architects and engineers in building design.
Apart from desktop applications, Bentley also has a few server applications. The most prominent application created is a project information management and cloud collaboration AECO technology called ProjectWise.Bentley published a majority of its products in fall 2008 under the V8i brand.
In 2014, Bentley announced an edition of its products which is built on the Microsoft Azure cloud computing service.
History
Keith A. Bentley, in conjunction with his brother, Barry J. Bentley, founded Bentley Systems in 1984. They introduced the commercial version of PseudoStation in 1985, which allowed users of Intergraph's VAX systems to use low-cost graphics terminals to view and modify the designs on their Intergraph IGDS (Interactive Graphics Design System) installations. This greatly expanded access to such designs, which could otherwise be accessed only through very expensive special purpose workstations. The product was shown to potential users who were polled as to what they would be willing to pay for it. The Bentley brothers then decided to simply average the results, thus arriving at a price of $7,943.
The Bentley's PseudoStation experience convinced them that there was a ready market for a stand-alone personal computer-based computer-aided design (CAD) system compatible with the Intergraph CAD file format. At the time, the IBM AT personal computer, based on Intel's 80286 microprocessor, was just becoming available, and their tests showed that it had enough processing power, disk speed, and graphics capability to do the job. MicroStation Version 1, which allowed users to download files directly from their VAX system to their PC to view and plot them (a very primitive Bentley View), was introduced to the market in 1986
Acquisitions
In April 2002, Bentley filed for an initial public offering, but it was withdrawn before taking effect. In November 2016, German-based Siemens announced it would pay about $76 million for a minority stake in Bentley, as well as invest in developing joint software with it.
Bentley Institute Press
Bentley Systems also is a publisher of textbooks and professional references for the architectural, engineering, and construction (AEC), operations, geospatial, and educational communities, under the name Bentley Institute Press
Bentley Infrastructure 500
Since 2010, Bentley annually published a ranking of the top owners of infrastructure from both the public and private sectors.