[CONNECT] Release of Update 12?

Hello Mark,

MicroStation CONNECT Edition Update 12 is going through the final internal release procedures.  If everything goes as planned, we hope to have it out at the earliest by the end of this week.

Thanks,

Daniel Eng

Hi Dan,

Dan Eng said:

MicroStation CONNECT Edition Update 12 is going through the final internal release procedures.  If everything goes as planned, we hope to have it out at the earliest by the end of this week.

because you and other Bentley colleagues have repeated the same several times from end of the last year, it's not very reliable information anymore :-(

My feeling, based on what I have heard from customers, Bentley lost credit because of CONNECT Edition. Not only because very low quality (slowness and number of reported bugs are facts), but also because of not properly handled communication (subjective attitude and feeling of users). Unfortunately you (Bentley) are actively working towards such situation because of lack of communication. Bentley prefer (exceptions exist, but are rare) to don't tell anything and to use "IBM / INGR / ... style" from last century), which is "don't tell anything, do not provide any information".

I think I am consistent in my long term opinion that every problem with product release is an opportunity to communicate with customers and to build better bond with users. Some other companies (including Bentley competitors) understand it and use e.g. blogs to provide information "behind the door". I recall plenty of blogs in a style "Did you hear about this our problem? We do this and that, discovered this problem, and are changing these things." Such approach does not make the development faster or decrease number of bugs, but work with community and actively change community perception.

Not long ago one from my local customer started to evaluate alternatives to Bentley products for chosen tasks. He told me "this is company working hard on their product" ... whereas I know it's small local company with limited resources, with not bad product (but quite focused on specific functionality), but cannot be treated as "MicroStation replacement". But they are open, constantly communicating their plans and achievements, so the overall feeling is much better.

Maybe the source of the problem is that standard positions in companies today are "community manager, community/technology evangelists" etc. which Bentley don't have and don't want understand such activities as a profession.

With regards,

  Jan

Jan,

what you described is what Bentley is doing for years already. If I remember correctly, maybe 10 years ago on previous discussion groups, you, me and other users wrote almost the same. so why do you think they would change something? that's the way how their management and marketing works. and that's the way where it will end. users moving to other software.

what is funny, when I asked my business contact in Ireland about increasing the Select price, I was told that now I get more and better software. so I asked if they mean CONNECT version and if they check many negative threads posted on this page. the answer was that yes, they mean CONNECT and they do not see any problems :-)

I didn't want to chime in on this, but being a user of many other CAD/3D modeling software packages, even CONNECT with all its issues is still faster, handles much larger data sets better and more responsive that some of the other products I use. People I know who are long time users of other packages will happily wait 20 mins for a large file to open, or clumsily try to rotate a model in 3d and get a fatal error, losing 30 mins of work. Confusingly they are happy apologists for all the flaws in the product they use - must be amazing marketing, I've never understood it...

That being said, CE does is a step backwards regarding refinement compared to v8i and much work needs to be done to give the users a quality product that they can rely on to do their work. I suppose, why have a better product if no one knows it exists...

Maybe I'm just a glass half full guy?

Mark, that's good to hear. My users are generally creating 2d architectural drawings so value the speed with which they can do that, the keyboard shortcuts, the ability to create high quality presentations from those drawings. If they want 3d they use Rhino and if they need a BIM workflow they use Revit. The problem with Connect is that whilst the individual tools are largely the same, the way they are accessed via the GUI is totally different and the default short cuts are totally different, and it all feels slower. I know I can enable position mapping and get the tasks window back (for now) but it feels clunky. Perception is really important with users and they talk to each other. The only way I'm going to get people using Connect is to remove V8i and I know that is going to cause a lot of resentment when I do it.  The only tangible benefit for my users at the moment with Connect is that they can open 2018 DWG files. They don't use any of the other 'improvements'.

Just an addition to release dates:

Microstation CE11 (English)  5 Nov 2018, Microstation CE11 (German) 14 Nov 2018

Powerdraft CE11 (English) 22 Nov 2018, Powerdraft CE11 (German) 14 Feb 2019 (!!!)

It's not as if we Germans weren't paying the same amount of license fees as the English speaking users.

f.mandoki said:

We're almost always about  the last language group to receive their version.

I am not sure about Czech versions, but I think we are after you ... which makes sense when German speaking and Czech speaking markets are compared ;-)

f.mandoki said:

I hope that at some stage Bentley releases all languages on the same day! That's not rocket science, it just needs some patience until all translations have rolled in.

Well, maybe the problem is that Bentley has no localization group. I know there are some people with "localization" on their business cards, but they know nothing about localization, there is zero enthusiasm or practical experience with localization and how it works in real life when software is implemented in particula industry with defined terminology and processes. But they like a lot their Excel tables and SAP forms and their primary goals are whether localization is done by always the same company (which makes life simpler), but definitely not quality. Nobody in Bentley is listening, there is no official way (and simple, with feedback) how to report localization issue and I do not remember any activity from Bentley "we would like to collect translations / localizations inputs from you" ... so we are back at lack of communication.

I am aware I am harsh and probably breaking community rules, but they are my real experiences from last about 10 years trying to solve terrible quality of localization. In the past I maintained personal list of localization issues in MicroStation (I did a lot of trainings that are perfect opportunity to find typos and wrong translations), but when I discussed an option to provide localization services, the answer was I am not certified and approved for the localization and when I am interested in localization, I should cooperate with selected translation company. I had a list of few hundreds of issues (in one product!) as evidence of poor job, but the priority was used the same company, not to make the product better and users happier. So after some time, I gave up.

Because of delays with translated versions availability and also because of so many mistakes in translations, I know many users prefer to use English version, but it's not solution for everybody. Moreover some users told me they refused to use Bentley Map, because it's so wrongly localized, that they do not understand the functionality (which is a result of fact the translator knew nothing about GIS terminology and uses 1:1 translations from some normal vocabularly).

Localization is the topic for another (and very long and depressing) discussion, I have incredible (from localization perspective) findings in new Bentley webs, CONNECTION Client, CONNECT Advisor etc...

Anyway, MicroStation Update 12 was released, so it's time to test it and report bugs... ;-)

With regards,

  Jan

f.mandoki said:

We're almost always about  the last language group to receive their version.

I am not sure about Czech versions, but I think we are after you ... which makes sense when German speaking and Czech speaking markets are compared ;-)

f.mandoki said:

I hope that at some stage Bentley releases all languages on the same day! That's not rocket science, it just needs some patience until all translations have rolled in.

Well, maybe the problem is that Bentley has no localization group. I know there are some people with "localization" on their business cards, but they know nothing about localization, there is zero enthusiasm or practical experience with localization and how it works in real life when software is implemented in particula industry with defined terminology and processes. But they like a lot their Excel tables and SAP forms and their primary goals are whether localization is done by always the same company (which makes life simpler), but definitely not quality. Nobody in Bentley is listening, there is no official way (and simple, with feedback) how to report localization issue and I do not remember any activity from Bentley "we would like to collect translations / localizations inputs from you" ... so we are back at lack of communication.

I am aware I am harsh and probably breaking community rules, but they are my real experiences from last about 10 years trying to solve terrible quality of localization. In the past I maintained personal list of localization issues in MicroStation (I did a lot of trainings that are perfect opportunity to find typos and wrong translations), but when I discussed an option to provide localization services, the answer was I am not certified and approved for the localization and when I am interested in localization, I should cooperate with selected translation company. I had a list of few hundreds of issues (in one product!) as evidence of poor job, but the priority was used the same company, not to make the product better and users happier. So after some time, I gave up.

Because of delays with translated versions availability and also because of so many mistakes in translations, I know many users prefer to use English version, but it's not solution for everybody. Moreover some users told me they refused to use Bentley Map, because it's so wrongly localized, that they do not understand the functionality (which is a result of fact the translator knew nothing about GIS terminology and uses 1:1 translations from some normal vocabularly).

Localization is the topic for another (and very long and depressing) discussion, I have incredible (from localization perspective) findings in new Bentley webs, CONNECTION Client, CONNECT Advisor etc...

Anyway, MicroStation Update 12 was released, so it's time to test it and report bugs... ;-)

With regards,

  Jan