Bentley Acquires Design Power to Enable Unique Front-End Engineering Design Solutions

Bentley Systems, Incorporated announced at daratechPLANT today
that it has acquired Design Power, a leading provider of design
automation solutions used by major engineering, construction, and
manufacturing firms, including Fluor, KBR, General Electric - Oil &
Gas, Bayer AG, Emerson Motors Company, Robertson Ceco Corporation, NCI
Building Systems, Inc., and the Selvaag Group.

At the core of Design Power's solutions is Design++, a
knowledge-based, multi-dimensional engineering solver. Design++
captures in-house engineering expertise through flexibly extended
business rules to automate design iterations in engineering platforms
such as MicroStation. The results are designs that are heuristically
optimal within the economic context modeled by the captured knowledge.
This very powerfully boosts productivity, improves quality,
accelerates delivery, and creates a sustainable competitive advantage.

Design++ automation solutions enable user organizations to more
effectively offer complex systems and products that are
designed-to-order. They provide design-based configurations,
proposals, and technical drawings; reduce cost by automatic reuse of
design rules and best practices in the design for manufacturing;
minimize subsequent rework by ensuring feasible designs; and build
customer loyalty by increasing responsiveness to initial proposals and
change requests. The solutions can be applied to design processes for
systems and products as diversified as process plants, capital
equipment, electrical systems, and building structures.

Design Power's PlantWise solution utilizes Design++ with a proven,
versatile, and extensible rulebase to enable fully piped and
lowest-cost 3D plant concept models to be easily created for review
and contextual optimization. Featuring collaborative "what-if" change
implementation and feedback, PlantWise allows users to interactively
and visually iterate to arrive at plant layouts that best meet design
criteria for throughput, economics, and safety. Piping applications
such as PDS, among others, may then conveniently be used for detailed
engineering with minimal information loss.

As Thilo J. Werners, project manager, Bayer Center for Technical
Engineering, explained in discussing a $36-million Bayer AG methyl
chloride project, "The primary advantage of using PlantWise is the
ease with which we can create and review new plant concepts in 3D. The
software allows managers to review and discuss design ideas and to
implement alternative solutions on the fly.

"For the methyl chloride plant, we considered numerous variations,
including piping and cable tray routing, operations concepts, erection
and dismantling access for every piece of equipment, piping studies,
instrumentation and control loops, penetrations, and passages.
PlantWise enabled the team to quickly develop and implement
alternative solutions."

Bentley is integrating PlantWise with its AXSYS, AutoPIPE, and
STAAD products to deliver a unique and complete solution for front-end
engineering design (FEED). Outputs include initial process flow
diagrams (PFDs), preliminary P&IDs, equipment sizing for procurement
and process analysis, and engineering analysis models that help assess
plant design safety based on applicable standards. This capability is
being demonstrated by Bentley at daratechPLANT.

Said CEO Greg Bentley, "First, on behalf of Bentley colleagues
around the world, I am pleased to welcome all Design Power users into
the Bentley user community. By integrating the capabilities of
Design++ and PlantWise within Bentley's DigitalPlant portfolio, we are
able to offer an advanced, rules-based plant engineering and design
solution surpassing any other. It will provide sharp increases in
productivity early in the design phase, and lead to significant and
continued cost and time savings throughout the plant lifecycle.

"Better still, we can deliver all of this improved capability
without asking users to change their preferred engineering and
construction platform. Our new FEED solution will interoperate with
whatever tools they've come to trust."

Mr. Bentley continued, "Design Power CEO Ulf Strom and his
colleagues have proven the advantageous applicability of a flexible,
heuristic solver to many demanding AEC requirements. Our solution
executives at Bentley are already planning breakthrough configurations
of the Design++ solver for other asset classes, such as certain
repeatable building types, for which the technology has been deployed
so impressively by Robertson Ceco and Selvaag BlueThink."

Added Rob Whitesell, vice president, Bentley Software, "Though
Design Power has always supported integration with other vendors'
solutions, Bentley's steadfast commitment to open standards,
particularly ISO 15926, will provide Design Power users with even
greater opportunities for interoperations. ISO 15926 will facilitate
higher levels of data fidelity when moving data into detailed plant
design software, allowing the transfer of complete, fully optimized
conceptual designs, rather than simply rough snapshots. And the
openness of our new FEED solution means all users, especially PDS
users, can reap its many benefits on any of their projects."

Said Ulf Strom, "All of us at Design Power are pleased to be
joining the Bentley organization, and know that our many loyal users
will be impressed with and benefit from Bentley's comprehensive
portfolio of solutions and capabilities. The new FEED solution that
incorporates PlantWise is the first of many innovations they can look
forward to."

Design Power is part of a DigitalPlant acquisition strategy for
FEED that began with the purchase of the AXSYS suite of products from
Aspentech in 2004, followed by the acquisition of the STAAD product
line in 2005. It is yet another achievement towards Bentley's dual
objectives of improving the productivity of its users through
interoperable solutions with which they are already familiar, and of
leveraging the power of engineering information beyond the design
workflows in the plant lifecycle.

Bentley and the Design Power team will work closely with Selvaag
BlueThink, creator of computer-based tools that automate residential
building design, in its application of Design++ technology to building
industry processes.

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
revenues now surpassing $400 million annually, 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.

To receive Bentley press releases as they are issued, visit
www.bentley.com/bentleywire. For more information, visit
www.bentley.com. To view a copy of Bentley's May 2006 Annual Report
online, go to www.bentley.com/May2006annualreport.

Bentley, the "B" logo, Design Power, Design++, PlantWise,
AutoPIPE, MicroStation, DigitalPlant, AXSYS, and STAAD 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.