Bentley Systems

Bentley Systems, Incorporated, is a software company that produces solutions for the design, construction and operation of infrastructure. The company’s software serves the building, plant, civil, and geospatial markets in the areas of architecture, engineering, construction (AEC) and operations. Their software solutions are used to design, engineer, build, and operate large constructed assets such as roadways, railways, bridges, buildings, industrial and power plants and utility networks. The company actively re-invests 20% of their revenues in research and development.

Bentley Systems is based in Exton, Pennsylvania, USA, but has development, sales and other departments in over 50 countries around the world. The company had revenues exceeding $593 million in 2013.

History

Keith A. Bentley, in conjunction with his brother, Barry J. Bentley, founded Bentley Systems in 1984. They introduced the commercial version of PseudoStation in 1985, which allowed users of Intergraph's VAX systems to use low-cost graphics terminals to view and modify the designs on their Intergraph IGDS (Interactive Graphics Design System) installations. This greatly expanded access to such designs, which could otherwise be accessed only through very expensive special purpose workstations. The product was shown to potential users who were polled as to what they would be willing to pay for it. The Bentley brothers then decided to simply average the results, thus arriving at a price of $7,943.