Jul 09 2008
Autodesk & Bentley Agree to Share
A utodesk, Inc. and Bentley Systems, Inc. announced an agreement to expand interoperability between
their architectural, engineering, and construction (AEC) software systems. The agreement calls for the firms to exhange software libraries in order to improve the ability to read and write the companies’ respective DWG and DGN formats. They also said they will facilitate work process interoperability between their AEC applications through supporting the reciprocal use of available Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).
It’s Not Easy to Share
Engineers, architects, surveyors, and others have struggled with the process of sharing information back and forth between the two systems for years. While there are various workarounds and process designed to make the conversion between the two proprietary formats, none I’m aware of have been completely successful. The firm’s cite a 2004 study by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology found that users bear direct costs of almost $16 billion annually from time wasted due to inadequate AEC software interoperability.
Free At Last?
A lot of firms have had their software choices made for them by virtue of their clients. For example, most architects favor Autodesk products. If you’re going to work for them, you’re forced to use it as well. If this agreement is fully implemented, design, surveying, and mapping firms will be free to choose the software from either Autodesk or Bentley with the confidence that their work product will be fully compatible with their client’s.
The Customer Comes First
Lastly, there’s hope this agreement is the result of a new commitment to putting the customer first. Greg Bentley, CEO of Bentley Systems said, “Realizing that our mutual users bear unnecessary costs resulting from lack of interoperability, we came together to finally make information reuse the norm. By raising its sights beyond file format issues, the resource-constrained AEC community can better serve us all.”
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