Bentley Map CONNECT Edition Technology Preview?

Is there a schedule now?

Thank you for asking. We are currently in the process of finalizing our plans for 2017. Please stay tuned...

Hello Oto,

With regards to your next message that discusses critical bugs/missing features.

I am very sorry to hear that you are not happy with the way things are developing for Bentley. Again, allow me to comment on some of your remarks:

"(...) If Bentley is really geo focused the development for Map should be more rapid and release priority patches and not just "will be fixed in next version" when actually it just don't happen."

#development for Map should be more rapid:

This year we have released two update releases for V8i SELECTseries 4 - in April and July - and we are finalizing a third update release that should be available before the end of the year. Possibly what you are referring to with "rapid" is the lack of speed in moving to post-V8i development, but I still wanting to point out that we did make an effort to regularly update and refine our existing V8i offering.

#and release priority patches

Besides the mentioned update releases we have released (and do release) priority builds to users with production preventing issues. We have an escalation procedure in place that in my experience works well and delivers priority builds when they are needed. Reading your remarks -- e.g. stating "makes BM not usable for production." -- I am wondering what happened in your case, and whether escalations where used to get you the right Map versions when needed.

#"will be fixed in next version" when actually it just don't happen

My experience is that we do not make these kind of statements unless a problem is actually going to be fixed. As part of an escalation procedure I can see those statements being made, or in communications about service tickets once it is confirmed that something is actually resolved. So again, I am wondering what happened in your case.

I will forward this tread to our support team and ask them to look into the examples you gave to give you a status update.

Best regards,


Gijsbert

Hi Gijsbert,

thanks for your anwer, just one comment:

Unknown said:

I was under the impression that we were clear enough that our focus in 2016 was always going to be on fine-tuning our product offering on the V8i platform

I am not quite sure if there was clearly explained in the past. Or maybe it was lost between other posts, which can happen easily. It's what I commented several times in the past: There is no easy-to-be-monitored channel with announcements and news related to specific product or area (common Bentley problem, not specific to geo). Compare it with both global and local blogs and twitter channels from companies like Microsoft (not not flexible mastodont anymore), local subsidiaries or partner of ESRI, Autodesk and also growing communities of open-source solutions (QGIS, OpenStreetMaps...), publishing news or even only ideas only to get quick feedback. So they keep they users interested in because of continuous flow of information about development and progress.

And the problem is multiplied because of local perspective: I don't know about other countries, but localy Bentley presence in magazines, news and web annoucement is zero. So what local users can know and remember today? Big CONNECT Edition announcement in 2015 and the conference (we will release "CONNECT Edition everything" soon), but I don't believe they track all discussions at BE Communities and I don't think there is any other source of up-to-date information.

With regards,

  Jan

Hello Jan,

Thank you for your suggestion about opening up our communication about development. It is definitely worth looking into improving the way we inform and engage with you and all other users.

Best regards,


Gijsbert

Thanks Gijsbert

Unknown said:

Hello Jan,

I can only agree with you that it would be great if we are at the point of being able to be more specific. However, I can only be specific once the approvals are assured to move forward and we are not quite there yet, I hope you .

If in the eyes of the users we have been unclear where were going with Map, that is something I do not wish to take lightly. I was under the impression that we were clear enough that our focus in 2016 was always going to be on fine-tuning our product offering on the V8i platform (which we did, delivering two update releases and a third update release scheduled to be released before the end of the year). If that message did not come across clearly enough, I would like to apologize.

What I can say at this point is that the Map team is very seriously working on the plans for 2017, and that our ambition is to go beyond our goals for 2016 and shift focus to post-V8i generation development. I have faith that those plans should be a step in the right direction for all of us.

Once our plans are in place - which I expect to be (very) soon - I will inform you and the community.

Best regards,


Gijsbert

Unknown said:

Hello Jan,

I can only agree with you that it would be great if we are at the point of being able to be more specific. However, I can only be specific once the approvals are assured to move forward and we are not quite there yet, I hope you .

If in the eyes of the users we have been unclear where were going with Map, that is something I do not wish to take lightly. I was under the impression that we were clear enough that our focus in 2016 was always going to be on fine-tuning our product offering on the V8i platform (which we did, delivering two update releases and a third update release scheduled to be released before the end of the year). If that message did not come across clearly enough, I would like to apologize.

What I can say at this point is that the Map team is very seriously working on the plans for 2017, and that our ambition is to go beyond our goals for 2016 and shift focus to post-V8i generation development. I have faith that those plans should be a step in the right direction for all of us.

Once our plans are in place - which I expect to be (very) soon - I will inform you and the community.

Best regards,


Gijsbert

Thank you for bringing this topic back up. My apologies for not specifically posting in this thread, but our FAQ communities.bentley.com/.../24672.bentley-map-v8i-vs-connect-edition was update late November last year (2016) with the information that there will be a Map CONNECT Edition.

So answering your straightforward yes/no questions:

1. Will there by a CONNECT Edition of Bentley Map (or some successor with a different name)?

Yes.

Initial development has already started, and once the next V8i Update release is completed (expected near of the end of February 2016) the whole Map development team will be on this. This is not a trivial project, so a release before the end of 2017 is uncertain at this time.

2. If so, will it be included in a future release of OpenRoads Designer CONNECT Edition?

No.

At this point, the development of OpenRoads CONNECT is without Map capabilities, but at the same time I do not believe that now that we have a green light for Map CONNECT, a future integration is completely ruled out.

Best regards,


Gijsbert

"(expected near of the end of February 2016) " should obviously be "(expected near of the end of February 2017)" My apologies.

Hi,
it's 2018 and to bring that back to Agenda... when can we expect Bentley Map CONNECT to be published?

Is there any Information about that? I couldn't find anything and depending on release date we'd like to migrate to ProjectWise / Microstation / Map CONNECT and Oracle 12c.

Best Regards,
Maik

Hi Maik,

Unknown said:

when can we expect Bentley Map CONNECT to be published?

we all know Bentley (but many other software developers as well ;-) never promise specific release date ;-)

Unknown said:

I couldn't find anything

I remember Bentley Map CONNECT Edition was mentioned as "demonstrated product" in some press release from Shanghai conference. So my assumption is that some development version exists internally, also because other Bentley product depend on Bentley Map engine or functionality.

Unknown said:

and depending on release date we'd like to migrate to ProjectWise / Microstation / Map CONNECT and Oracle 12c.

This is common problem, I have several such customers (even less complex, but waiting to migrate everything not separateley e.g. MicroStation and OpenRoads Designer). But even when BM will be released, I guess it will take several month to stabilize it (every first version is just public beta ;-) a also to test all used BM tools are there and operational.

Regards,

  Jan

Sorry for the delay in responding.

Bentley Map CONNECT is under development and is expected to be released at the end of February, 2018.

The first product released will be Bentley Map.  This was previously known as Bentley Map Standalone but since layered versions of the CONNECT products are not being developed, it is simply Bentley Map.

 

As mentioned, it will be a CONNECT Edition product, meaning a 64 bit application (very good for large data sets and reality models), new ribbon interface, access to the Bentley Cloud Services and other CONNECT related features.

 

To start, the most often used capabilities will be available in Bentley Map CONNECT.  Missing from this first release will be things like:

• Print Preparation
• Topology features (cleanup, buffer, overlay etc.)
• Publish i-models
• FME Interface
• Grid Generation Tools
• RDBMS editing
• Map Finishing
• The SDK
• Others

 

Our intent is to provide the functionality used by the vast majority of our users in the first release and provide updates quarterly thereafter.

 

Bentley Map Enterprise and Bentley Map PowerView are expected to follow by Q2 2018.

 

We are very excited about making Bentley Map available to our CONNECT users.  We expect the improved performance with large data sets and new streamlined interface will be particularly appealing and as always, look forward to your feedback.