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About this Issue….
A weekly news magazine featuring important industry news profiles, a summary of recently published AEC product and company news, customer wins, and coming events. Brought to you by AECCafe.
Welcome to AECWeekly! The BE Conference 2005, held in Baltimore May 8-11, drew over 2,000 attendees from around the world. The organization of the conference was as follows: Monday was designated "Keynote Day" where Bentley executives gave an overview of their product areas, and Tuesday "Vertical Day" was dedicated to specific keynote tracks in each of the four product areas: building, plant, civil and geospatial. Read about it in this week's Industry News.
AECWeekly examines select top news each week, picks out worthwhile reading from around the web, and special interest items you might not find elsewhere. This issue will feature Industry News, Acquisitions/Alliances/Agreements, Announcements, Awards, and Upcoming Events.
AECWeekly welcomes letters and feedback from readers, so let us know what you think. Send your comments to me here.
Best wishes,
Susan Smith, Managing Editor
Industry News
BE Conference 2005 Special Report
By Susan Smith
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Keynote Day
Tom Peters
Keynote Day at BE Conference 2005 launched with a keynote by well known speaker and author Tom Peters, author of Thriving on Chaos and Passion for Excellence, among other titles. Peters talked about how to be part of a "Wow" project, According to Peters, "wow" is when a project turns out to be really dramatically different than what it started out to be. Peters is fond of adages and repeatedly remarked that he was not worried about being invited back because he is now 62 years old, so he was talking to the audience as if it were the last time he would be at BE.
His emphasis was on the necessity for change in order to induce creativity. "If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less," he quoted from General Eric Shineski, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, who incidentally was fired by Donald Rumsveld for not having done enough.
Peters charges that "best" is not good enough. He believes that the CFO should not become the CEO of a company.
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"As a civil engineer I wish I was a project manager for the Big Dig," claimed Peters, noting that digging a hole in a city (Boston) that's 400 years old that's built on landfill is a great job. "Wouldn't it be cool to say to your gson you were project manager for this project?"
(Interestingly, in last week's AECWeekly, Thomas Koulopoulos had mentioned the Big Dig as one of the most exciting projects going on right now, precisely because of its scope and number of failures.)
"If you are a project manager, redefine what you do in a big way," said Peters. "I want you to change the world. Do you get it?" He got down from the podium and walked around in the audience. "My grandfather built Bancroft Hall. In its own small way it changed the world. I don't have any patience with anyone who doesn't want to do this. Nobody remembers any dork who came in on budget; they remember people who did cool stuff."
What's the definition of someone who made it into a history book? A total weirdo freak, said Peters. He doesn't understand why people would want to do a good job on budget. "Does the history book say Winston Churchill delivered World War II on budget? The British didn't eat for the next ten years after the war because it wasn't on budget."
"This is the true joy of life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy."
GB Shaw, Man and Superman (from Mike Ray, The Highest Goal)
"Experiences are as distinct from services as services are from goods." - Joseph Pine
Peters used the example of Harley Davidson, offering the "rebel" experience.
"What we sell is the ability for a 43 year old accountant to dress in black leather, ride through small towns and have people be afraid of him." - a Harley executive was quoted in Results-Based Leadership.
Harley is 2% of the size of General Motors and their profit was 50% of that of General Motors last year.
"A chimera of a moonstruck mind" - refers to the decision of Thomas Jefferson to buy the Louisiana Purchase.
Peters cited numerous talented and creative people who had pushed the envelope in one way or another, to do something extraordinary that has changed the world. Basically, in spite of the fact that his talk was more of a tirade against those who were not reaching this type of significance, he was an inspiration to all types of human creativity.
Greg Bentley
In the past year, Bentley has acquired companies such as Optram, Nextwave, RAM, and last but not least, Haestad Methods - Bentley's largest acquisition ever, making Bentley a global leader in water and wastewater management.
CEO Greg Bentley gave a brief rundown of what each of those acquisitions will bring to Bentley:
- Optram Inc. is a leader in rail/transit maintenance of way software
- Nextwave is a leader in SAP/AEC integration.
- Bentley has also formed a relationship with RAM International to take advantage of RAM's structural applications and RAM's comprehensive design of concrete frames, concrete slabs, foundations, and more. Bentley will begin introducing RAM products immediately and have consistent growth in the structural engineering product line.
Building
"You Deserve Better"
A theme that was to occur throughout the conference was Bentley's more "aggressive marketing campaign" - including their e-marketing initiative, and the fact that Bentley strongly believes that AutoCAD users should not be facing "forced" retirement of their older software versions. This campaign is known as the "You Deserve Better" program. Of course, Bentley believes that those AutoCAD users who have faced retirement of an older version of AutoCAD software should purchase "a software that offers a win/win solution, Bentley Select, which does not have price increases," claimed Greg Bentley. Bentley Select, by the way, is not a software solution, it is a subscription program by which customers can purchase Bentley software one time per year and receive regular upgrades. "The clincher of this marketing campaign is our DWG interchangeability - this pays off in new account penetration."
Tools for the "You Deserve Better" program include:
- PowerDraft, PowerMap, PowerCivil and Power Survey
- Bentley's AutoCAD applications
- MicroStation applications
- ProjectWise managed environments
Other software companies such as SolidWorks and Intergraph have also announced software alternatives for the 2000i retirement, but their marketing campaigns look nothing like Bentley's.
In a later conversation with Chief Marketing Officer, Tony Flynn, I learned that well over 100 accounts have moved from Autodesk to the "You Deserve Better" program. (This is not to suggest that these accounts will drop their Autodesk products altogether, only that they have signed on with Bentley). The new accounts must sign on to the Bentley SELECT program, which is the "best way to buy," according to Flynn. By getting customers to sign on for two years of SELECT, Bentley claims that they can "match or beat" Autodesk's offer of an upgrade price.
Bentley's AutoCAD applications are fully interoperable with AutoCAD and MicroStation applications. The technology, a set of software libraries that Bentley builds in to MicroStation and PowerDraft, has been created and provided by Evan Yares, President of the Open Design Alliance. According to Flynn, one copy of MicroStation can be a ladder to various versions of AutoCAD.
Nowhere does this become a more compelling but perhaps also more challenging strategy than in Asia. Bentley now has an office in Beijing, China, called Bentley Asia, headed up by Vice President, Bentley Asia, Jean Baptiste Monnier. The new operating unit is in the fastest growing part of the world, and divided into four units: Greater China, comprising Hong Kong, China and Taiwan; Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, the Philippines and other islands; North Asia, Japan and Korea; South Asia including India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Infrastructure requirements are so large, nearly 70 percent of all the world's capital assets are expected to be built there. According to Monnier, there is a need for broad licensing accounts in Asia, and Bentley is actively looking for application partners in China.
The CAD software that is used most predominantly in Asia today is pirated AutoCAD software of very old versions that are no longer supported by Autodesk. The broad licensing agreement that Bentley proposes is an "open licensing subscription" whereby for the price of legalizing five copies of AutoCAD, customers can have unlimited use of PowerDraft - which is a 3D product as opposed to AutoCAD which is marketed as strictly a 2D product. Bentley's thinking is that customers with these old pirated versions of AutoCAD can't afford the new versions, and they can't really replace AutoCAD with AutoCAD LT.
Further, Bentley is working with third party Asian developers who have developed on AutoCAD and want to begin development in 3D. Hong Kong is considered the model city for these developers; all new buildings were designed using Bentley 3D technology.
Asia has a traditional market focus, according to Monnier, with a tremendous need for infrastructure - rail, highways, power, oil and gas, and city government-and these are the application areas in which Bentley will obviously focus its attention.
MicroStation V8 XM Edition and ProjectWise V8 XM Edition
The two hottest products on the table at the event were clearly the new V8 XM Editions of both MicroStation and ProjectWise.
Four new innovations comprise the V8 XM Edition of MicroStation, which are as follows: o Task modeling: This innovation cuts down the number of tools users must learn to do their job. Task modeling allows users to have instant access to tools specific to each task, which is achieved by dynamically matching tools to tasks. o Project table of contents: Users can set up, maintain, and navigate a project table of contents, which links to all the project resources including drawings, specifications, and standards. o 3D in PDF: We have covered this topic in AECWeekly recently in more detail than will be described here. Basically, an entire AEC project which could include CAD drawings, specifications, and PDF versions of Microsoft Office files, could be packaged in a single, hyperlinked PDF document. The project or document can be viewed by anyone with Acrobat Reader. o Updated GUI and new display subsystem: the new Edition of MicroStation has an updated user interface with improved customization tools. Also, it includes a new powerful and faster graphics system that increases view and navigation speed for 2D and 3D designs. This is made possible through the use of Microsoft DirectX technology, which is used for driving the computer game industry.
Of course, the new Edition inherits previous innovations from past versions of MicroStation V8 and is backwardly compatible.
ProjectWise V8 XM Edition
ProjectWise is Bentley's collaboration server that enables high-performance multisite collaboration among AEC project teams. It has evolved beyond the distributed engineering for which it was first intended, and now is used by customers of every vertical division at Bentley. ProjectWise V8 XM Edition has more than 7,000 servers in production, according to Bhupinder Singh, Vice President, Platform Products.
ProjectWise is a standard set of connecting services to get to and from services - basically a "service oriented architecture" with interfaces for application control as well as integration.
The following are all the ProjectWise servers of the platform group. ProjectWise servers are integrated loosely and you can integrate them further:
- Plot Server
- Publishing Server
- Integration Server
- Caching servers
- Web server
Keith Bentley Keynote
Keith Bentley, Director and CTO, wrapped up the day with a technology keynote about changed workflows, the value of 3D design, the value of digital content, and web services. He spoke of the slowness of the AEC technology industry, stating that "we make 50% progress in 18 years."
The value of design is greater today than ever, he said. We have better designs, not just better documented designs but also models that are really models. Digital content is becoming the "of record" medium and is much more manageable.
Distributed computing - the peer-to-peer transfer of data files, was also discussed. Increasing in importance are web services, along with our increasing need for the capabilities of searching, indexing, collating, reformatting, security, digital identity and digital rights. Bentley cited Google as the company that every software company is trying to emulate or maximize the value of at this time. "Google has set the bar for how people want to find stuff," said Bentley, noting that ProjectWise offers the abovementioned capabilities beyond Google. All Bentley products are a part of the ProjectWise family.
The V8 XM Edition is software built in layers designed to solve specific problems, suggested Bentley. The emphasis with this release is on
- User experience
- Workflow evolution
- Project indexing
- Information modeling
In a later press conference, Bentley announced that all XM products would be available Q4 2005.
When asked why the emphasis of so many of the Bentley speakers was on the competition, Bentley replied that they felt that "users want to know how the products of the competition compare."
When asked about Bentley's "dependence" upon Oracle or Microsoft, Bentley replied: "With Oracle we don't want to write the layers ourselves." The company will also provide support for SQL Server. With regard to Microsoft, Bentley added, "We are dependent upon Microsoft. We used to support 13 operating systems but that became too costly."
With all the recent Bentley acquisitions, is there a concern that they have too many products? "We're in a market where we believe breadth is paramount," responded Bentley. "We'll make more acquisitions, integrate new companies into our infrastructure. We'll maintain a broader product base - we buy people, install bases, and try to keep the organization focused on what they've done well."
Vertical Day
Building
Brad Workman, Vice President, Bentley Building, gave the Building Keynote, leading off with the facts of a recent NIST study stating that the building industry lost $15 billion annually due to fragmentation and lack of interoperability.
There has been some progress, according to Workman. The General Services Administration (GSA) is looking for a one-stop budget with great architecture delivered on time and on budget. At the Construction Users Roundtable (CURT), which is the owners' voice to the construction industry, building owners required that members use BIM for delivery of design for all their projects. The AIA Document Subcommittee is looking at new and expanded ways for architects to deliver and consider BIM.
A Building Research Seminar was held on Sunday adjacent to the BE Conference, which explored the interface between design and computational theory and architectural and building engineering practice. Theoretical issues of geometry, design computation, simulation, and structure with practical examples of parametric design applied to a diverse range of building types were discussed.
In a conversation with Dr. Robert Aish who chaired this event, I learned that the parametric tools that have been in the research phase for some years will be provided free in the MicroStation Version 8.52 release in Q1 2006 to SELECT subscribers, under the name Generative Components.
Two new announcements in this area were Bentley Building Electrical Systems and a partnership with RAM for structural steel.
Plant
Five case studies were presented by Jeff Hollings, Senior Vice President, Bentley Plant, at the Plant keynote. DigitalPlant is Bentley's process and plant design product that is designed to protect current investments and connects those investments to all current systems and information. The idea is to offer solutions for both MicroStation and AutoCAD users in DigitalPlant, which are able to span the life of the asset from front end design to operation/maintenance and beyond.
Bentley has made four strategic acquisitions in the plant market recently: eWarehouse from ESSI, the AXSYS process engineering products from AspenTech, Haestad Methods and its water modeling products, and IFS software products. LOGOS is an upcoming acquisition that Bentley will announce to add to this portfolio of products.
The DigitalPlant system supports files and components and communicates information at these two levels. Change management is achieved by DigitalPlant across all plant information systems and updated automatically.
Civil
Bentley has recently opened a new Bentley Civil office in Sunrise, Florida. They purchased GeoTransport some time ago, which includes transportation operations, real estate/land acquisition, advanced OS/OW permitting and routing, and transportation data integration (linear referencing).
The user base is broken down as follows: o 47 DOTS are standardized on MicroStation o 44 DOTs use InRoads, GEOPAK, or MX o FHWA, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and top EC firms are also customers.
As in other areas of Bentley, the company practices "evolutionary product development," and in the case of Civil, they are refactoring code, using .NET technology. .NET allows Bentley to support three product lines - InRoads, GEOPAK and MX - and keep moving forward. Also they have complete integration with other vendor solutions.
Two new products to be delivered in June are Stakeout and Inspector. Stakeout runs on ruggedized devices and can do feature and spatial queries, and also is tied to graphics. Inspector has handwriting recognition capability and can read systems such as AASHTO Manager. Users can achieve true as-built construction.
A concept somewhat difficult for DOTs is that quantity data needs to be created in design, but hopefully these tools will help that become a reality.
PowerCivil was released in November 2004 and has all the functionality of PowerDraft with civil functionality included.
Also announced was Bentley's acquisition of Moss Italia Srl, a leading civil engineering solution provider and Bentley channel partner with offices in Milan and Rome.
Geospatial
At the Geospatial keynote, Bentley introduced next generation mapping technology, MicroStation Map, which will allow full MicroStation Geographics capability with analytic and thematic tools included. This product will be a geospatial extension of MicroStation. Also offered will be specific editions of Map such as MicroStation Map for land management, which will allow users to implement parcel editing tools.
Bentley ProjectWise Connector for Oracle will ship within the next two weeks. The connector enables Bentley applications to interoperate with any native Oracle Spatial 9i or 10g datastore. Moreover, it preserves the definition of the geospatial data as specified by the user organization, rather than placing vendor-dictated restrictions on the Oracle database definition.
With the synchronous release (fall 2005) Bentley will ship a Connector for topology editing on the Oracle model as well as one for mainstream data capture. Basically, Bentley has fully embraced Oracle 10g's native topological model in its geospatial creation and editing applications.
Bentley has evolved the ProjectWise environment so that federated data management can span databases, data management and file-based management, and can analyze files and find attributes quickly.
The next release of GeoWeb Publisher will provide significant performance enhancements and the ability to connect to various databases, support dynamic publishing and preprocessing publishing (i.e. that of Mapquest, etc.), publish directly from Oracle, and have development wizards for non-programmers.
There was an emphasis at this conference in moving toward 3D in GIS. Bentley is very well positioned to do this with its background in 3D, and feels that some other GIS vendors are not positioned as well because they rely on a topological database. "A topological database is not built to do 3D," according to Carey Mann. The idea, Mann said, is to have one platform for a project like 3D city model planning, using TriForma, Bentley's extension for MicroStation that provides a common technology platform for architectural and engineering design, in GIS.
Third Party Vendors
The 29 third party vendors exhibiting were generally Bentley partners, largely system integrators, graphics card providers, wide format scanning providers, laser scanning providers, Safe Software and Mathsoft Corporation. Leica Geosystems, Trimble, VIDAR, Ricoh Corporation and Riverbed Technology filled out the hardware offerings.
Acquisitions/Alliances/Agreements
Meridian Systems® and Satyam Computer Services Limited, a global consulting and IT services provider, announce a global alliance agreement wherein Satyam will provide professional information technology and implementation services to new and existing users of Proliance, Meridian's infrastructure lifecycle management solution.
Bentley Systems, Incorporated announced Bentley Building Electrical Systems. Developed in partnership with elcoSystems UK, the new software will address the electrical system design and management needs of consulting engineers, contractors, owners, and facility managers in the building industry.
Bentley Systems also announced that it has acquired Moss Italia Srl, a leading civil engineering solution provider and Bentley channel partner with offices in Milan and Rome. The company, in which Bentley already held a minority interest, has been serving the civil engineering market for ten years, adapting software solutions to the needs of some 200 user organizations in the region.
AVEVA announced that, with the signing of the Dongfang and Harbin Boiler Companies, as well as the Shanghai Boiler Works, it is now effectively the biggest provider of engineering IT solutions to the £1bn Chinese industrial boiler market.
In deals that are worth more than US$300,000, all three companies have purchased AVEVA's flagship product, VANTAGE PDMS, with the Harbin Boiler Company and the Shanghai Boiler Works also investing also investing in other integrated AVEVA solutions.
Avatech Solutions, Inc. announced that the company has become an authorized reseller of Rapid Design Visualization (RDV), an application for Autodesk Civil 3D which enables the rapid and easy creation of high quality visualization and simulation scenes of any Civil 3D project.
Meridian Systems® and Plan Express, Inc. announce an ISV partnership agreement to integrate the Plan Express solution with Proliance®, Meridian's infrastructure lifecycle management solution. The integration solution provides a dynamic interface between the hardcopy distribution services offered by Plan Express and the comprehensive capital construction and facilities management capabilities of Proliance-reducing errors and increasing time savings in document management and reproduction processes.
Announcements
Research and Markets has announced the addition of China Building Materials Market to their offering.
China is now one of the world's largest building materials producers with annual output of cement, plate glass, construction ceramics and sanitary ceramics ranking first in the world. The building materials industry has been one of the pillar industries in China's economy. It is also a significant component of the construction industry, accounting for about 15% of the construction industry's industrial added value.
Driven by a bullish real estate market in 2003, all sectors of China's building materials industry have recorded profits. The total industrial added value amounted to RMB 143.5 billion (USD 17.35 billion), representing an impressive annual growth rate of 26.5%, the highest in the recent 10 years. It is forecasted that such a growth pace will be maintained in 2004. Cement manufacturing is the largest sector in China's building materials industry. Among China's top 100 building materials companies in 2003, 59 were cement manufacturers. This is 1.2% of the total 4, 813 cement firms nationwide.
The First Annual Synergis Technology Expo, hosted by Synergis Engineering Design Solutions and Autodesk, is an opportunity for design and engineering professionals to learn how the latest design automation tools can successfully impact their work efficiency. Industry experts in Manufacturing, Building Design, Government, Infrastructure (Civil/GIS), Data Management and Education will educate attendees on the latest Autodesk solutions through more than 30 breakout sessions.
| DATE: | Thursday, June 9, 2005 |
| TIME: | 7:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. |
| LOCATION: | Fort Washington Expo Center | 1100 Virginia Drive, Fort Washington, PA 19034 |
Bentley Systems, Incorporated announced that Manitoba Transportation and Government Services (MTGS) has selected the Advanced Routing and Permitting System (ARPS) to enhance the delivery of the Permit Services (PS) program. PS regulates the province-wide movement of oversize and overweight commercial vehicles.
Bentley also announced the expansion of its 3E-Government seminar series to 17 cities in the United States and Canada, plus 47 locations throughout Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and Australia.
Deltek, enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendor, announced that Ames Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy research facility operated under contract by Iowa State University, has purchased Deltek Costpoint®, the back-end accounting solution at the core of the Deltek Enterprise™ suite.
IBSystems, Inc. announced the launch of its iCAD Network™. Each month the iCAD Network's combined strength of six highly trafficked CAD-centric web sites delivers more than 1.5 million page-views to more than 200,000 unique visitors and delivers more than 1.5 million e-newsletters to its email subscriber-base.
Mathsoft®, calculation management provider, announced the integration of Mathsoft's Mathcad® and Bentley's MicroStation® software to streamline engineering calculation and design for the architectural, engineering and construction (AEC) market. The integration will enable engineers to harness results of complex calculations computed in Mathsoft's Mathcad to drive 3D designs parametrically in Bentley's MicroStation computer-aided design (CAD) software.
Best Software announced the launch of a newly enhanced Development Partner Program supporting the company's Timberline Office product suite. Timberline Office provides fully integrated financial and operations software for construction and real estate professionals.
Kelar Corporation has been named the top Value Added Reseller (VAR) of Revit® software in North America by Autodesk, Inc. In the year 2004, Kelar Corporation's San Diego office generated more Revit software revenue than any other Autodesk® VARs in North America.
Centric Software announced that Iowa State University has expanded its use of Centric's Design-Build solution by acquiring an unlimited seat license in order to offer access to the facilities departments at The University of Iowa and The University of Northern Iowa.
Iowa's state universities are facing the challenge of managing costs while continuing to move forward with capital improvements to their campus and facilities. While staffing levels within the capital construction program have not been cut, they also have not expanded at the same rate as the number of capital construction projects.
New Products
Oce unveiled Version 2.0 of its Repro Desk® print submission and workflow automation software at the IRgA Annual Convention and Trade Show being held in Las Vegas, May 11-13, 2005. This entirely new product platform provides many new advantages to commercial reprographers seeking to streamline print job workflow from the design desktop to the digital print room.
Oce also announced the Oce TDS800 Pro Series -- a highly configurable printing and scanning system designed to meet the dynamic workflow requirements of any mid-to high- volume large format printing environment.
Intergraph Corporation is shipping the 4.2 version of its SmartPlant® P&ID intelligent piping and instrumentation engineering software. The new version offers system editing for updates of properties on pipe systems, controlled P&ID updates for accuracy after reference data changes and display sets for combining display filters into a centrally-managed environment. The new features are aimed at increasing work process efficiency to control engineering cost and promote greater P&ID accuracy.
Geac®, a global provider of software solutions to the CFO, launched a major new release of Geac MPC, its flagship integrated performance management software suite. Geac MPC 7 lets large enterprises put powerful performance management capabilities - including strategy, planning, budgeting, forecasting, consolidation and reporting - in the hands of finance and business professionals across an organization, while preserving centralized control of critical information.
MultiSUITE Software, the UK's leading structural CAD software, released new applications for AutoCAD 2006. MultiSUITE for AutoCAD 2006 builds on the success of earlier versions of MultiSTEEL and MultiREBAR that are fully reworked to maximize the benefits of the latest AutoCAD platform.
Awards
Synergis Technologies, Inc. announced the certification of its Engineering Design Solutions Division as an Autodesk Premier Solutions Provider (PSP) A+ Academic Specialist for Autodesk education solutions. Becoming Autodesk's first Academic value-added reseller (VAR) to achieve A+ PSP status, this coveted recognition indicates that Synergis Engineering Design Solutions is considered the premier provider of services and customer support within the educational communities in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Upcoming Events
| SPAR 2005 | |
| Date: | May 23 - 24, 2005 |
| Place: | Houston Omni Westside
Houston, TX USA |
| The aim of SPAR 2005 is threefold. First the conference will illuminate the business case for using 3D laser scanning and other dimensional control technologies to improve the efficiency and reduce the risk of capital project execution for process manufacturing, civil infrastructure, transportation, fossil and nuclear power generation, offshore construction and architectural projects through improved existing- conditions capture. Second, SPAR 2005 will help practitioners from survey firms, laser scanning service providers, engineering/construction firms as well as asset owners and operators discover and exchange information about best
practices to deploy these technologies. Third, SPAR 2005 showcases the newest technology from the world’s leading suppliers of terrestrial laser scanning hardware, software and services. |
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| GeoProb 2005 Conference | |
| Date: | May 25 - 27, 2005 |
| Place: | Eastern Mediterranean University
Famagusta, Turkey |
Conference Topics
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You can find the full AECCafe.com event calendar here.
To read more news, click here.
-- Susan Smith, AECCafe.com Managing Editor.