Bentley Systems, Incorporated today announced that the City of
Lakeland, Florida, has joined Bentley's Municipal License Subscription
(MLS) program. The city will use its new MLS to make its engineers
more productive and expand their access to advanced software. This
will enable Lakeland to deliver enhanced services to its citizens at
the lowest reasonable cost while maintaining its reputation as a
low-tax city.
Bentley's MLS offers municipalities all the software they need to
design and manage all their infrastructure for a fixed annual fee
based on population. The breakthrough program enables them to improve
productivity and reduce administrative costs by outfitting their
entire mapping and engineering organizations with fully integrated
software for GIS and engineering workflows. This leads to improved
services and more efficient government.
Lakeland provides its 91,623 citizens with a complete array of
services, including electric power, water, wastewater and stormwater
management (within the city's 72.2-square-mile area), land
development, road maintenance, and emergency services, to cite just a
few. It also generates and distributes electric power from its
city-owned-and-operated power utility to 253,405 residents spread over
a 246-square-mile area.
Said Tracy Kirkpatrick, Lakeland's assistant director, Department
of Information Technology, "With our MLS, for close to the same price
as our former subscription, we can access more than 10 times the
number of Bentley products and solutions. Given the breadth of
services that Lakeland delivers to its citizens, this is clearly an
opportunity to which we had to say yes."
He continued, "There are a number of products we are anxious to
test and possibly deploy - for example, Bentley Expert Designer to
improve the productivity of our engineers when designing and operating
our electric distribution network. However, at the top of our list is
Bentley's ProjectWise collaboration system. Its implementation will
help us support our site development workflows and eventually make
Lakeland an excellent example of e-government in action."
Lakeland believes that site development automation will bring
substantial savings through data sharing among city departments and
external contractors and developers. In the medium term, the city
foresees all of the paper in the site development process being
replaced by digital documents posted to ProjectWise - available to
users through secure log-ins and privileges. Currently, every time a
contractor applies for a permit on a project, it has to submit 10
paper copies of all the specifications and drawings.
Benefits Lakeland is already enjoying from its new MLS include the
ability to provide project teams with an increased number of licenses
for the Bentley products it is currently deploying. Among these are
MicroStation, Digital InterPlot, InRoads, PlantSpace, and SewerGEMS.
As Kirkpatrick explained, "With our MLS, our engineers don't have
to wait for access to, say, a MicroStation license. Previously, we
sometimes had to ask field engineers to bring in their laptops after
just 48 hours in order to free up licenses for more pressing
assignments. Now, our field engineers can keep their laptops and
MicroStation licenses out in the field for months at a time. The same
holds true for the other Bentley products we regularly deploy."
In addition, the city is saving both time and money as a result of
dramatic reductions in software deployment times. As Kirkpatrick said,
"With our old subscription it would take us a year to go through our
planning and budgeting process, followed by a lengthy procurement
process once the budget had been approved. Today, we just download the
software we need and go from there. Without question, the MLS is
making us a more nimble and responsive organization."
Bentley's MLS program provides municipalities with unlimited
access to a comprehensive portfolio of integrated GIS and engineering
software for all of their infrastructure, including:
-- Public works - roads, bridges, water, sewer, and storm
-- Land development
-- E-government
-- Light rail design
-- Community broadband
-- Electric and gas network design
-- Water and wastewater treatment plant design
-- Urban planning
-- Cadastre management
-- Public safety
-- Municipal building design
-- Mapping and 3D modeling
Because the program's fees are fixed, Bentley's MLS guarantees
predictable software costs and budgeting. In addition, it removes the
administrative burden of complex software licenses, shortens
procurement cycles, speeds project starts, and ultimately leads to
more efficient government.
For more information about Bentley's MLS program initiative and
software or to contact a Bentley representative, visit
www.bentley.com/MLS.
About Lakeland, Florida
Centrally located between Tampa and Orlando, the City of Lakeland,
Florida, offers its 91,623 residents and many visitors a wide variety
of sports, entertainment, cultural, and educational opportunities.
Lakeland is the heart of Polk County and it is Lakeland's charm that
creates a beautiful blend of a small town feel with the convenience
and amenities of much larger cities.
Lakeland has received the distinction of being on Money Magazine's
"Best Place to Live in America" list. In addition, Lakeland is home to
Publix Supermarkets and Florida Southern College, which hosts the
largest one-site collection of Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture, and
has been the winter host home to the Detroit Tigers for over 65 years.
For more information, visit the official City of Lakeland site at
www.lakelandgov.net.
About BE Conference
The BE Conference, which consistently scores a 99 percent attendee
satisfaction rating, is a once-a-year learning opportunity for Bentley
user organizations offering professional training, technology updates,
keynotes, and best practice sharing. At these sessions, attendees
better themselves, better their organizations, and better the ways
they can improve the world's infrastructure.
For more information on BE Conference 2007, taking place this week
at the Los Angeles Convention Center in California, go to www.be.org.
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 2400
colleagues globally, Bentley is the leading provider of AEC software
to the Engineering News-Record Top 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 April 2007 Annual Report
online, go to www.bentley.com/April2007annualreport.
Bentley, the "B" logo, BE, Bentley Expert Designer, Municipal
License Subscription, MicroStation, ProjectWise, Digital InterPlot,
SewerGEMS, InRoads, and PlantSpace are either registered or
unregistered trademarks or service marks of Bentley Systems,
Incorporated or one of its direct or indirect wholly-owned
subsidiaries. All other trademarks are the property of their
respective owners.
