An Incredible Autodesk/Bentley Agreement!

If you haven't heard, Bentley and Autodesk actually agreed on something :-)

OK, I had to say that.  In all seriousness, July 8 will be remembered by all kinds of AEC design professionals as a landmark day.  That's the day Autodesk and Bentley announced an agreement to exchange software libraries with one another.  To say interoperability between AutoCAD and MicroStation just got a whole lot better is an undrestatement.  To say that this is one of the biggest and best pieces of news to ever hit the CADD world is not.  Read about the agreement here

Of course, not that MicroStation had interoperability that bad to start with.  Bentley's memembership as part of the Open Design Alliance  (ODA) was crucial to their support of DWG with the launch of V8.   And I will not mince words: I will readily admit I was never a fan of the way Autodesk treated interoperability: "Trusted DWG".   "RealDWG".  The file format changes every three years.  Tying AEC data directly into the DWG files.  And so on.  And then the announcement of the agreement - stunning! 

Consider - not only will this make it easier for the two leading CADD companies in the world to read each other's data, but any question of the legality of trying to even read, let alone be accused of (or sued for) reverse-engineering the other's format, or stealing any proprietary information, just evaporated.  That to say nothing of the productivity gains this will mean for professionals around the world. 

Now that Autodesk  has agreed to exchange software libraries with Bentley, might they take the next step and actually join the ODA, accepting a years-old proposition?  But wait - there are more chance happenings that might occur too.  Now that each company will have the actual libraries for each other's file formats, it can only help each produce better products in the future.  Who knows what may arise?  Possibilities abound, but here's just one to start: perhaps on its next iteration of DWG, Autodesk may actually build some redundancy into the DWG format.  Imagine DWG lasting a lot longer than three years the next time around...