bentleyuser.org - Bentley buys STAAD

Bentley buys STAAD
by Lars Hesselgren, Director KPF Research. - 16 September 2005

Bentley recently announced an agreed purchase of netGuru's REI business whose principal product is STAAD. STAAD is well known as a structural analysis package in the Structural and Civil Engineering world.

This further expansion by purchases is extremely important in creating the 'integrated software' of the future. Sure TriForma has links to all sorts of analysis packages but it is not the same as outright ownership.

Finally there is the possibility that structural calculations will be built into the base CAD software platform.

Many of us in the user community have argued that real physics (in addition to parametrics) is where the next generation of CAD is headed. There is a whole world of analysis which precisely has made a living out of modelling physics (in their case the structural behaviour of common structural materials) for years.

Now this knowledge is controlled by a company which will hopefully introduce into the construction industry what has been the norm in the mechanical industry - a completely integrated suite of software bringing all design tools into one environment.

My own personal take on this is that it will long term redefine the role of professionals. Mundane calculations will routinely be done by non-structural professionals (professional indemnity allowing) and structural engineers will have to move upmarket into ever more refined analysis.