Bentley Systems Makes Strategic Investment

07 July 2010, 9:36pm

EXTON, Pa. – July 7, 2010 – Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading company dedicated to providing comprehensive software solutions for the infrastructure that sustains our world, today announced that it has acquired a minority interest in Charlotte, N.C.-based BLUERIDGE Analytics, Inc., provider of SITEOPS – breakthrough site design optimization technology that utilizes cloud computing to save substantial time and cost while improving land development outcomes. SITEOPS, a patented web-based application, empowers civil engineering professionals, real estate developers, and land planners to quickly perform site configuration simulations, produce preliminary cost estimates, optimize site designs, and reduce overall costs. The conceptual designs are compatible with DGN, DWG, LandXML, and other file formats, so they can be easily exported into software such as Bentley’s MicroStation, Power InRoads, and Power GEOPAK for final design work. Among owner-operators and retailers benefiting from SITEOPS’ many capabilities are Lowe’s Companies, Inc. and Target.

Joseph Viscuso, vice president, Stantec, a leading provider of professional consulting services for infrastructure and facilities projects, said, “We were introduced to SITEOPS by some of our commercial clients, including Lowe’s Companies, and a number of them now mandate its use on their projects. SITEOPS provides a much more reliable starting point for site design – one that allows you to consider grading options in the early stages of a project rather than six months or even a year or two out, which is the norm with traditional approaches. It also gives you early cost estimating data, along with the ability to look at five, ten, even twenty design alternatives. This means you can work with a client in making some really good siting and grading choices up front that can both shorten development time and reduce development costs.”

Viscuso added, “So we are happy to see Bentley make this investment and look forward to working with them in moving site design in a completely new direction. Moreover, as a longtime user of Bentley’s solutions and products, we look forward to leveraging interactive workflows among SITEOPS and our Bentley civil engineering tools.”

Mike Detwiler, president and CEO, BLUERIDGE Analytics, said, “We are extremely pleased to have Bentley Systems, a recognized global leader in software for sustaining infrastructure, as our largest shareholder. Bentley’s decision to make a significant investment in our company and help support our ongoing development work validates the tremendous potential of our cloud-based land development technology.”

“This is an intriguing investment for us,” Greg Bentley, CEO, Bentley Systems, said. “As we advance information modeling for intelligent infrastructure, by way of integrated projects, what I call ‘simulation towards optimization’ is increasingly key. SITEOPS shows that a well-structured challenge such as site development can truly be made a science. Though SITEOPS is still in the early adoption stage, the resourceful team at BLUERIDGE Analytics has more than proven its potential in just a few short years. Already, evolutionary computing applied to land development now sets the new standard for preliminary site design performance. Equally important, the company’s management team has demonstrated a viable cloud computing business model that many of us can learn from and perhaps help extend.”

SITEOPS addresses the challenges associated with conventional land development processes by systematically considering millions of layout, grading, and drainage options for a site within hours instead of months. Engineers are thus empowered to produce conceptual designs faster and present more options to land developers. Through its powerful evolutionary computing techniques, SITEOPS can save a significant proportion of site development costs.

Products include SITEOPS Multi Pad for conceptual site design and SITEOPS Design for rapid site selection assessments and conceptual layouts. For additional information, visit www.siteops.com.

To facilitate information sharing among SITEOPS and Bentley users, Bentley will add a SITEOPS user community to its Be Communities professional networking site at the link below.

Bentley

Geo: International