Bentley Announces V8i Software Portfolio

Bentley Systems (PA, USA) has announced V8i, the most comprehensive software portfolio for infrastructure ever assembled in a single release. Encompassing products for all of the solution communities served by Bentley, the V8i portfolio leverages and extends core capabilities of its new interoperability platform to provide the breadth and depth of technology needed for fully integrated project delivery.

V8i's interoperability platform enables Bentley applications to persist, share, and visualise infrastructure asset data in a common way, promoting collaborative workflows. The result is a project environment that combines flexibility, scalability, and robustness, and a portfolio that offers engineers, architects, GIS professionals, constructors, and owner-operators unprecedented choices across discipline-specific integrated software and services incorporated in Bentley solutions. Developed as a collective whole, the V8i software portfolio facilitates streamlined workflows among multiple disciplines and across project teams throughout the infrastructure lifecycle.

The benefits of V8i include increased information quality, enhanced infrastructure asset quality, improved operational safety, reduced project costs, and shortened delivery times. Among the many innovative core capabilities of V8i are intuitive design modeling, interactive dynamic views, intrinsic geo-coordination, and incredible project performance.

Two critical advantages of the V8i portfolio are intraoperability and interoperability. Together, they enable broader reuse of project and asset information generated during the design, construction, and operation of infrastructure, and enhance the ability of project teams to choose among multiple software offerings. The intraoperability occurs across and between tightly coupled V8i products without loss of information. The interoperability occurs across necessarily distributed projects where participants can now increase their choice of software offerings from Bentley, loosely but usefully coupled with the work of other practitioners using software based on DGN, PDF, DWG, ISO 15926, IFC, and other industry standards and related APIs.

Some of the key business benefits of V8i to user organisations include:

- Infrastructure project improvements leading to lower total installed cost coupled with lower operating expenses,

- More efficient retrofits and modifications throughout an asset's lifecycle,

- A competitive edge in the face of increased global competition,

- Increased efficiency, safety, and reliability of infrastructure and the services it provides.

Core V8i Capabilities

V8i "Introductory Financing" Program

In recognition of sudden global credit constraints, and to facilitate incorporating the best information modeling technologies into critical infrastructure initiatives - improving the economic performance of the projects and resulting assets - Bentley also announced a new financing program to accelerate adoption and return on investment in V8i. For new licenses purchased during the balance of 2008 (at Bentley's standard competitive pricing), fees may be paid in three annual installments. Also, to expedite realisation of V8i's benefits for infrastructure, during the balance of 2008, users of Bentley software who are not presently subscribers to the Bentley SELECT subscription program may join SELECT without needing to pay the back fees that would normally pertain for periods of non-coverage.

Bentley Also Launches BE Communities

In other news, Bentley today announced the official launch of BE Communities, a social networking site for professionals in the architecture, engineering, construction, operations, and GIS communities. BE Communities includes tools such as forums, blogs, resource galleries, and a wiki that allow members of the infrastructure community to connect, communicate, and learn from each other. Originally launched in beta during the BE Conference in May of this year, the BE Communities site has since been enhanced and updated. To access BE Communities, visit http://communities.bentley.com/.