Bentley and McGraw-Hill CIG Salute 'ENR Design 500'.

Business Editors/Hi-Tech Writers

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 20, 2001

A/E/C SYSTEMS 2001--At a reception last evening at the A/E/C SYSTEMS 2001 trade show, Bentley Systems, Incorporated and the McGraw-Hill Construction Information Group saluted the achievements of the firms listed in Engineering News-Record's 2001 Top 500 Design Firm rankings.

Nearly half of the honored firms primarily rely upon Bentley's MicroStation(R)-based asset creation software and/or Viecon(TM) information management solutions in support of their market-leading design activities. These Bentley software users generate nearly two-thirds of the domestic design revenue earned by all the listed firms, and they utilize, on average, more than 100 MicroStation seats per firm in doing so. (Determination of the firms' primary reliance upon Bentley products is based on their ongoing investment in Bentley products, equal to at least one full-time MicroStation license per million dollars of domestic design revenue.)

Greg Bentley, CEO of Bentley Systems, Inc., congratulated the 500 firms, saying he recognized that "the large scale of projects and inherent risks for the ENR Design 500 make it important for your mission-critical IT vendors to focus on long-term relationships and stable performance." He noted that Bentley was just listed as the largest privately held firm (and No. 13 overall) in the 2001 Softletter, is profitable, and that Bentley's revenue growth continues to outpace that of its markets.

Bentley's participation at A/E/C SYSTEMS 2001 includes a large exhibit at which the anticipated 15,000 attendees will be able to view demonstrations of Bentley's wide array of products used by architects, engineers, builders and owner-operators around the world. Bentley is featuring MicroStation V8 with its remarkable ability to reference and edit both DGN and DWG files in native format, as well as numerous new production and project-level capabilities.

MicroStation V8 is tightly integrated with other Bentley asset-creation applications, as well as Bentley's Viecon information management solutions, such as the recently released ProjectWise(R) 3.2, Viecon Publisher(TM), and Bentley's ActiveAsset Planner(TM). The interoperability of these products and solutions were featured at the "Working Together"(TM) seminar hosted by Bentley.

Speaking at the ZweigWhite AEC Internet Strategies Conference held in conjunction with A/E/C SYSTEMS, George Church, Bentley senior vice president and general manager of The Viecon Network, outlined Bentley's progress with the Viecon initiative. "Bentley today is the only company to offer an end-to-end solution for engineering information management," said Church. "ProjectWise is tightly integrated with desktop applications like MicroStation and AutoCAD(R), plus now it is integrated with our Viecon Publisher, InterPlot(R) and Digital Print Room(TM) for information publishing and distribution, with Viecon Project Hosting for collaboration, and with Bentley's ActiveAsset Planner for management of the facility. For the first time, information can be accessed by all project participants in a context-appropriate format without the need for human intervention at different steps in the workflow and asset life cycle."

Bentley also sponsored the 2001 IT Summit for Large Design Firms, as well as a presentation by London-based architectural firm Damond Lock Grabowski on its use of ProjectWise as an engineering information management solution. CEO Greg Bentley addressed attendees in his Wednesday keynote on how technology such as Bentley's is helping A/E/C users to take advantages of new opportunities arising from leveraging A/E/C information "content."

About the ENR Top 500 Design Firms

McGraw-Hill Construction Information Group has annually ranked the Top 500 Design Firms since 1965. Engineering News-Record verifies the information provided by each firm. Within construction-related markets, ranking in the Top 500 Design Firms is equivalent to being named to the Fortune 500: Being on the list is an important qualifier in doing business with government agencies and other organizations.

About Bentley

Founded in 1984, Bentley Systems, Incorporated is a premier technology supplier dedicated to improving the process of designing, building and operating permanent assets such as buildings, roadways, manufacturing facilities and utility and telecommunications networks. The professionals who use Bentley technology include architects, engineers, constructors and owner/operators. Bentley's MicroStation and Viecon technology and services make Bentley the leader in the Engineering, Construction and Operations (E/C/O) market.

Bentley's reach spans the globe, serving more than 300,000 professionals and over 20,000 companies and organizations. It is the largest privately held company in the 2001 Softletter 100. More than 200,000 Bentley users participate in the Bentley SELECT(R) technology and service subscription program.

For more information on Bentley, please contact the company at 800/BENTLEY, 610/458-5000 (Americas), [phone] (Europe, Middle East, Africa), [phone] (Asia/Pacific), through E-mail at [e-mail] or by visiting www.bentley.com.

Bentley, the "B" logo, InterPlot, MicroStation, ProjectWise and TriForma are registered trademarks; ActiveAsset Planner, Digital Print Room, Viecon Publisher and Viecon are trademarks; and Bentley SELECT is a registered service mark of Bentley Systems, Incorporated or Bentley Software, Inc. AutoCAD is a registered trademark of Autodesk, Inc.