Coming out of decisions from the companies’ Alliance Board meeting, Bentley Systems and Siemens decided to further strengthen their strategic alliance, which started in 2016.
The two companies will accelerate joint business through cooperative investment, utilizing Siemens’ Teamcenter collaboration platform technology.
Joint Investment Initiatives
The two companies have decided to extend their 2016 agreement, which entails further developing their joint business cooperation and commercial initiatives. This means a joint investment program will increase from €50 million to €100 million.
Additionally, Siemens will continue to invest in secondary shares of Bentley’s common stock, taking their total investment in Bentley over 9 percent.
Klaus Helmrich, a member of the Managing Board of Siemens AG, said: “I’m very pleased with how strong our alliance started. Now we are investing in the next collaboration level with Bentley, where for instance we will strengthen their engineering and project management tools with Siemens enterprise-wide collaboration platform Teamcenter to create a full Digital Twin for the engineering and construction world.”
01 – Industry at twilight. Siemens and Bentley have compatible tech to solve IoT era infrastructure challenges through mutual cooperation and investment. (image: Bentley Systems and Siemens / Architosh. All rights reserved)
He added: “Integrated company-wide data handling and IoT connectivity via MindSphere will enable our mutual customers to benefit from the holistic Digital Twins.”
Greg Bentley, Bentley Systems CEO, said: “In our joint investment activities with Siemens to date, we have progressed worthwhile opportunities together with virtually every Siemens business for ‘going digital’ in infrastructure and industrial advancement. As our new jointly offered products and cloud services now come to market, we are enthusiastically prioritizing further digital co-ventures. We have also welcomed Siemens’ recurring purchases of non-voting Bentley Systems stock on the NASDAQ Private Market, which we facilitate in order to enhance liquidity, primarily for our retiring colleagues.”
Architosh Analysis and Commentary
Bentley’s strong focus is in “infrastructure” development and operations management software, and the company has dozens of design, engineering and management operations software lines focused on everything from plant design to bridges and roads. Wiki defines “Digital twin” as a “digital replica of physical assets, processes, and systems that can be used for various purposes.” Importantly, a digital twin of a physical asset isn’t just a three-dimensional representation of all the elements of that asset, it critically also digitally replicates the “dynamics” of how the asset works in the physical world throughout its life cycle.
The focus of this joint initiative seems highly focused on deriving value from common customers by implementing IoT (Internet of Things) technology across common customer assets in the infrastructure markets, of which there are many. Siemens’ MindSphere, mentioned in the release, is an open cloud platform which importantly stores operational data and makes it accessible to apps written to connect to IoT technologies at physical assets using “MindApps.” These apps are written to bring in data from all kinds of sensors in physical environments.
An interesting longer-term development for this cooperative partnering may be the future of autonomous driving. Bentley makes the world’s leading tools for the creation of roads and bridges—the very structure on which cars exist—along with key apps for mapping out and creating a high-precision digital version of that real context. The physical context for autonomous driving will ultimately need to updated and both of these companies seem to have ideal overlaps of technologies to make that happen.
About Siemens AG
Siemens AG (Berlin and Munich) is a global technology powerhouse that has stood for engineering excellence, innovation, quality, reliability and internationality for 170 years. The company is active around the globe, focusing on the areas of electrification, automation and digitalization. One of the world’s largest producers of energy-efficient, resource-saving technologies, Siemens is a leading supplier of efficient power generation and power transmission solutions and a pioneer in infrastructure solutions as well as automation, drive and software solutions for industry. The company is also a leading provider of medical imaging equipment – such as computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging systems – and a leader in laboratory diagnostics as well as clinical IT. In fiscal 2017, which ended on September 30, 2017, Siemens generated revenue of €83.0 billion and net income of €6.2 billion. At the end of September 2017, the company had around 377,000 employees worldwide. Further information is available on the Internet at www.siemens.com.
About Bentley
Bentley Systems is a global leader in providing engineers, architects, geospatial professionals, constructors, and owner-operators with comprehensive software solutions for advancing the design, construction, and operations of infrastructure. Bentley users leverage information mobility across disciplines and throughout the infrastructure lifecycle to deliver better-performing projects and assets. Bentley solutions encompass MicroStation applications for information modeling, ProjectWise collaboration services to deliver integrated projects, and AssetWise operations services to achieve intelligent infrastructure – complemented by comprehensive managed services offered through customized Success Plans.
Founded in 1984, Bentley has more than 3,500 colleagues in over 50 countries and is on track to surpass an annual revenue run rate of $700 million. Since 2012, Bentley has invested more than $1 billion in research, development, and acquisitions. www.bentley.com
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