This morning in Amsterdam, the weather alternated between sun, clouds and rain. At the Hotel Okura, COO Malcom Walter welcomed attendees to Bentley’s Be Inspired Conference, an event that recognizes outstanding infrastructure projects around the world. Attendees came from all over the world to see presentations by competition finalists.
Walter showed a video of the first miner in the Chilean mine disaster as he was brought to the surface to emphasize the human side to infrastructure.
The Netherlands is known for its infrastructure – the very existence of the country has depended on windmills and dykes that keep land and sea separate. Walter said that without infrastructure to pump water and keep it in bay, everything would be under water.
This year there will be video recordings of the finalists’ presentations available on the Bentley website.
CEO Greg Bentley talked about resilience and helping the world be more resilient. “We define infrastructure as the way we improve our planet,” he said.
He showed some slides that highlighted the use of Bentley products through out the recession. Bentley pointed out that after the recession hit, there have been more people in front of MicroStation, and although that might be good in some ways, it also means that people are working more hours now.
Other facts:
1)New countries are now reporting usage that weren’t before this year.
2) Bentley has seen growth in Europe’s MicroStation utilization hours.
3) Asia has never had a recession.
4) Infrastructure and plant have had a hard time sustaining growth, geospatial and civil has had some growth.
5) Bentley has achieved some growth in 2010.
6) Projectwise passport adoption has grown greatly in 2010 and is used by the majority of top Design 100 firms.
7) Bentley is ranked #2 in the geospatial market according to Daratech.
8) Bentley is ranked #1 in plant & process market according to Daratech.
Dutch municipalities – over 50% use Bentley technology for urban planning, road design, GIS and mapping workflows.
