Bentley Ships WaterGEMS V8 XM Edition; Winner of AWWA's 2006 People's Choice Award Is First in Industry To Bring Together ArcGIS, MicroStation, AutoCAD, and Stand-Alone Users.

EXTON, Pa. -- Bentley Systems, Incorporated today announced the commercial release of WaterGEMS V8 XM Edition, the only water distribution modeling solution to unify modeling across MicroStation, ArcGIS, AutoCAD, and stand-alone platforms.

The 2006 winner of the AWWA People's Choice Award as the most useful new product, WaterGEMS V8 XM goes beyond GIS-centric products, providing a true data-centric solution. This means that water utilities and consulting firms can, for the first time, leverage the benefits of ArcGIS integration without sacrificing interoperability with the AutoCAD, MicroStation, and stand-alone platforms.

"Because every modeling project we do is a brand new challenge, we need water resources technology that enables us to stay flexible," said Earl Schneider, a senior associate at Hatch Mott MacDonald, a full-service engineering company. "Though we typically use the readily accessible stand-alone environment for the majority of our modeling work, the new WaterGEMS also gives us the ability to deliver CAD-based models while still achieving high levels of functionality, performance, and integration with ArcGIS."

Commenting on the new WaterGEMS, Robert Mankowski, director of geospatial product management for Bentley, said, "After introducing the first-ever ArcGIS-integrated water model in 2002, we are now delivering a much faster and tighter integration for ArcGIS users without suffering the restrictions of a GIS-centric paradigm. With WaterGEMS V8 XM Edition, a single geodatabase can be shared and collaboratively maintained by ArcGIS, AutoCAD, stand-alone, and now MicroStation users."

WaterGEMS V8 XM Edition extends every piece of functionality across all the included CAD, GIS, and stand-alone platforms. For example, GIS users can now exercise total control over engineering units directly within ArcGIS's attribute tables, using the same FlexTables technology they can find in the other included platforms.

Additional new features of WaterGEMS V8 XM include:

--Criticality Analysis Center: This comprehensive utility helps identify critical assets in water distribution infrastructure and evaluate the risk associated with their failure.

--New modeling elements: Hydrants, isolation valves, and variable speed pump batteries have been added to the framework to support asset management and hydraulic modeling workflows.

--Pressure-dependent demands: Users can define demands as a function of pressure to effectively model intermittent water supply scenarios, sprinkler heads, and unaccounted-for water.

--Centralized water demand management: Users can streamline water consumption estimation with new geospatial demand allocation methods, unit demand engineering libraries, and global management for simple, composite, and pressure-dependent demands.

WaterGEMS V8 XM Edition is available today to all Bentley SELECT subscribers. For more information on WaterGEMS V8 XM Edition, please visit: www.bentley.com/WaterGEMS.

About Hatch Mott MacDonald

Hatch Mott MacDonald is a full-service infrastructure, transportation, and environmental engineering company headquartered in Millburn, N.J. The firm offers public and private clients a complete range of services - from planning, feasibility studies, conceptual through detailed design, to procurement, construction management, and full program management services, as well as operations and maintenance support. With over 32 offices in North America, and access to staff resources of more than 14,000 worldwide, Hatch Mott MacDonald can respond quickly and cost-effectively to any project demand. For more information, visit www.hatchmott.com.

About Bentley

Bentley Systems, Incorporated provides software for the lifecycle of the world's infrastructure. The company's comprehensive portfolio for the building, plant, civil, and geospatial verticals spans architecture, engineering, construction (AEC) and operations. With 2005 revenues of $336 million and more than 2000 colleagues around the world, Bentley is the leading provider of AEC software to the Engineering News-Record Top 500 Design Firms and major owner-operators and was named the world's No. 2 provider of GIS/geospatial software solutions in a recent Daratech research study.

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Bentley, the "B" logo, MicroStation, WaterGEMS, and Bentley SELECT are either registered or unregistered trademarks or service marks of Bentley Systems, Incorporated or one of its direct or indirect wholly-owned subsidiaries. Other brands and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.