With AutoDesk University starting this week in Sin City I
figured it was nigh time to finally put together some thoughts on last month’s
2014 Year in Infrastructure (YII) and Be Inspired awards held in what has to be
considered the BIM capital of the world – London. This was my third YII and second attending it
as a member of the press. The great
thing about attending as a member of the press is that you get to attend “press
day” at the beginning of the conference. During which Bentley executives review
the previous year and outline plans for the next one. Large software company presentations can be
both an interesting, but confusing experience.
It is interesting hearing from, meeting and interacting with Bentley’s
top management and leaders. Confusing
since no one ever discusses specifics. Instead,
they paint sweeping corporate visions and future directions. The high level, sweeping vision thing can be
vague and confusing. It does present an interesting exercise in reading between
the lines and connecting the various dots. The press briefing dealt with two
major themes.
One - Bentley’s new focus on bringing the Construction side of the
industry into the BIM world. Bentley is
partnering with Timble to integrate construction and design data via
“Construction Modeling”. Which will use the Bentley imodel as the data exchange
format. Bentley is spreading out to the
cloud its ProjectWise collaboration and file management software. This will
allow for broad based collaboration between users. Along with purchasing SiteOps for what
Bentley is calling “Site Optioneering”.
At the time I tweeted.
Bentley partnering with Siemens for PLM
& Trimble for construction (BIM) - best of breed Info Modeling. What does
it say about IM? #YII2014
What does this say about IM (information modeling)? It shows that Bentley
is getting serious about integrating data from a variety of sources. Particularly, in those areas that it
currently does not have a large presence in.
The construction and the mechanical worlds.
Is Bentley
now branching into design as a service (daas) in conjunction saas with siteops
acquisition? #YII2014
This tweet I think brings up and even more interesting and groundbreaking
scenario. Over the past few years Bentley has been positioning itself to become a
software as a service (saas) company.
Being an early proponent of software subscriptions rather than physical
licenses. Selling integrated suites of
products for as long as I can recall.
Bentley has always tried to be a one stop solution provider for their
customer/clients. Now with the addition
of SiteOps to their design tool catalog, agreements with Trimble and
Siemens. Bentley is now positioned to
become a Design Services Provider.
Two – leveraging the cloud and software as a service
via the announcement of MicroStation Connect.
What exactly is MicroStation Connect?
That is the 64,000 dollar question.
Even though it discussed and featured in talk after talk, Bentley never
defined it. Is it a newfangled version
of MicroStation? This is what it seemed
to be. As the day progressed I became convinced that it is more an environment
than it is a new version of MicroStation. At least not in the traditional
sense. While MicroStation Connect will
be a new 64 bit version of Bentley’s flagship MicroStation. MicroStation connect will exist not only in
the traditional standalone version. But also as cloud based saas version. It will continue to be the graphics engine that
Bentley’s other products will use. Its principal use will be as a data
presentation and exchange engine.
MicroStation connect will use imodel technology for seamless, data
exchange within the project.
Day one of the Year in Infrastructure 2014 was
sweeping overview of what Bentley has been doing and where it is going. When exactly will Bentley become a Software
as a Service provider? When will
MicroStation Connect be available? When
will this new vision take effect? I wish I knew. My best guess is that we will start to see
the beginning of the Siemens and Trimble collaborations late next year. As for MicroStation Connect? Don’t expect it
to before the 2016 and I would say it will be 2017/18 before it is in general
use.
