Architosh Staff (info@architosh.com)

5 Jun 2002

 

Web TidBits: Bentley Mac needs, SolidWorks, and Bjork QT

Bentley News, Feedback and Mac Needs

Chris Pegher of Burt Hill Kosar Rittelmann Associates wrote in concerning Bentley and Microstation. Recently he attended the Bentley International User Conference (BIUC) where he met a "closet Mac user who works for Bentley." As Chris Pegher noted, this person is in a somewhat "influential position" and encouraged Mac users to pound the doors at Bentley asking for a Mac version if they wish to move to Microstation.

We've heard this before, straight from Bentley staff, and it seems they are not at all closed to the idea of supporting the Mac platform so long as they can make a viable business case for it. We are not sure exactly what Microstation's marketshare is doing in the architecture market these days but if a recent article in the latest Architectural Record magazine is any indication, they have about 20 percent marketshare. Same as the Mac, if such survey data is indicative of the overall market. (for more information read this report).

This puts Microstation squarely in the second place spot behind Autocad, however Microstation appears to be very prevalent in large (50-149) and jumbo (150+) sized firms. This means that their seat counts may be disproportionately higher, relevant to marketshare, than other CAD programs.

SolidWorks on Mac

Eric Peirce wrote in concerning interest in seeing a Mac OS X version of SolidWorks come to market:

SolidWorks for Mac OS X. Please! this would allow me to learn the software on my Mac at home and not on my peecee at work. Who knows, my boss might even buy me a new dual GHz G4. This would be a great addition to OS X. Also would put a little fire under Vectorworks' butt.

Thanks, Eric

Well, we agree. And actually believe that SolidWorks will eventually come to the Mac OS X platform in due time. How much time? We don't know, but if things continue in the manner in which they have been, we see many more science and engineering professionals discovering OS X and in turn driving adoption and porting of apps. Thanks Eric. And as for the fire underneath Nemetchek North America's butt? ...well, for a company that has put out more vertical CAD and 3D products in such a short duration of time than anyone else in the market I'm not so sure a fire is needed. But if you say so!

On Bjork Video

Our story on the risqué music video by Bjork which featured a strange use of animation streams flowing from her body (strange only if you are not familiar with Bjork) got a lot of attention and a number of readers thanked us for it. We appreciate the feedback. Here's a note from the webmaster of Apple Iceland's' corporate site:

Nice article on Bjork's video.

Regards, Muri, Apple.is webmaster.

Muri also added that "usually when MTV can't show something the same applies for Apple.com."

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