REDMOND, Wash. and EXTON, Penn., Oct. 19,
2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Bentley Systems (Nasdaq: BSY) and
Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) on Monday announced an
expansion of a strategic alliance focused on advancing
infrastructure for smart city urban planning and smart
construction. The alliance will combine Microsoft's Azure IoT
Digital Twins and Azure Maps with Bentley Systems' iTwins platform,
enabling engineers, architects, constructors and city planners to
work within a comprehensive city-scale digital twin, empowering
better decision-making, optimizing operational efficiency, reducing
costs and improving collaboration.
Microsoft and Bentley Systems, a leader in engineering software
for professionals to design, build, operate and maintain critical
infrastructure such as road and rail networks, and public works and
utilities, will collaborate to develop new smart city
solutions. The companies will explore opportunities for
digital twins in urban planning and citizen engagement for cities
around the world. The collaboration will enable improved
decision-making and increased productivity through Microsoft Teams
for infrastructure engineers.
"At Bentley we believe that infrastructure digital twins can
empower engineers, constructors and owner-operators to design,
build and operate infrastructure assets that are more
cost-effective, more resilient and more sustainable," said
Greg Bentley, CEO, Bentley Systems. "With Azure as the foundation
of our cloud services, our offerings are more broadly scaled and
differentiated by the further integrations of Microsoft
technologies. We are excited to extend our partnership to bring new
digital twin advances to infrastructure engineering organizations
and their constituents."
"With Azure IoT, Azure Digital Twins and Bentley's iTwins
platform, the world's infrastructure — vital to our economies and
environment — stands to gain so much by enabling people to create
comprehensive digital models of an entire environment," said
Casey McGee, vice president, Global
ISV Sales, Microsoft. "Our expanded strategic alliance with Bentley
Systems opens up new opportunities for innovation and will
accelerate the benefits of digital twins for infrastructure
engineering organizations and, more broadly, society at large."
City planning and managing professional football club complex
projects
The capital city of Dublin, Ireland, with a population of more
than 1.2 million, is working with Bentley Systems to develop a
large-scale digital twin as part of the city's planning efforts.
"To overcome the challenges of getting public review and comment
for new development projects in Dublin during the pandemic, we turned to
Microsoft and Bentley to create an interactive virtual environment
to ensure our citizens could provide their input from the safety of
their homes and keep the development projects on track," said Jamie
Cudden, smart city program manager at Dublin City Council. "The
impact of the pandemic has forced cities like Dublin to accelerate their digital
transformation journeys. Working with Microsoft and Bentley we
are reimagining how interactive virtual environments and digital
twins can support citizens to engage from the safety of their own
home on new development projects in their local communities.
Working with these technology partners, we are building an
adaptable and scalable solution based on Microsoft Teams and
Bentley's OpenCities Planner that will set the standard for the
future of planning and public engagement in
cities."
In addition to sustaining infrastructure development in smart
cities, project digital twins are facilitating industrial
construction. Bentley Systems was recognized by Microsoft as the
2020 MSUS Partner Award winner for the Industry-Automotive
category, in which an automotive factory uses the HoloLens 2
with Bentley's SYNCHRO 4D construction-modeling software.
Similarly, FC Barcelona, one of the oldest football clubs in
Europe, is partnering with Bentley
as part of the club's renovation of Barcelona's Camp Nou stadium, the largest in
Europe, currently under
construction amid the pandemic. The project will upgrade streets in
the neighborhood and increase capacity at the stadium to revitalize
an aging stadium and for the club to compete with other top
European cities.
"Bentley has been working with FC Barcelona on the Espai Barça
Project for over three years, helping the architects, the
construction team and the club complete an extraordinary challenge
— delivering a major renovation of the stadium while it continues
to host matches," said William T. Mannarelli, director of
Real Estate & Espai Barça. "With Bentley's SYNCHRO 4D
construction-modeling software running on the Azure cloud, we can
apply cutting-edge techniques to manage the complex and precise
scheduling required to keep the stadium open during
construction."
Bentley's ProjectWise, in conjunction with Microsoft Azure and
Microsoft Teams, has empowered Bentley's users to work from home
safely while collaborating virtually on projects anywhere in the
world.
The companies will further combine Bentley's infrastructure
digital twins expertise with Microsoft's cloud technologies for:
- ProjectWise 365, an instant-on, 100% Azure cloud-based
solution that increases the speed and quality of infrastructure
design collaboration, which will be available through Microsoft's
commercial marketplace.
- Bentley's iTwins platform to leverage Microsoft's Azure Digital
Twins, Azure IoT Hub, Azure Time Series Insights and other
Microsoft cloud services, for users to rapidly store and process
operational data.
On Oct. 20, at Bentley's Year in
Infrastructure Conference, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will join Greg Bentley for a discussion of the companies'
new infrastructure digital twin alliance priorities. Register at
Year in Infrastructure 2020.
About Bentley Systems
Bentley Systems (Nasdaq: BSY)
is the infrastructure engineering software company. We
provide innovative software to advance the world's infrastructure –
sustaining both the global economy and environment. Our
industry-leading software solutions are used by professionals, and
organizations of every size, for the design, construction, and
operations of roads and bridges, rail and transit, water and
wastewater, public works and utilities, buildings and campuses, and
industrial facilities. Our offerings include
MicroStation-based applications for modeling and simulation,
ProjectWise for project delivery, AssetWise for asset
and network performance, and the iTwin platform for
infrastructure digital twins. Bentley Systems employs more than
4,000 colleagues and generates annual revenues of more than
$700 million, in 172 countries.
www.bentley.com
About Microsoft
Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT" @microsoft)
enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud
and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and
every organization on the planet to achieve more.
© 2020 Bentley, the Bentley logo, AssetWise, MicroStation,
ProjectWise, SYNCHRO 4D, and SYNCHRO XR are either registered or
unregistered trademarks or service marks of Bentley Systems,
Incorporated or one of its direct or indirect wholly owned
subsidiaries. All other brands and product names are trademarks of
their respective owners.
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SOURCE Microsoft Corporation