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Bentley to Acquire A+ Integrated Solutions; US Dealer Network Dwindles

Posted on Tuesday, January 31, 2006 11:29 AM

Although it isn’t official until tomorrow, Bentley has acquired A+ Integrated Solutions, a reseller of Bentley, Solid Edge/UGS, and Meridian software products and Z Corp. 3D printers. The announcement has become the former A+’s home page at http://www.aplusis.com/. Contact instructions for customers of non-Bentley products are on the site.

Ten years ago there were more than 150 independent resellers of Bentley products worldwide, more than 100 of them in the US. Around 1998, Bentley started moving to an internal sales and support model, centered on its Bentley Integrators program of key resellers. Over the next few years, Bentley bought most of the Integrators, and discontinuted reseller agreements with most smaller resellers. (By becoming Bentley Integrators, these key resellers allowed Bentley to take an equity position in their firms.) By 2003 there were only six Bentley Integrators and a handful of other independent resellers remaining in the US.

With the A+ acquisition, there’s just one Bentley Integrator left, ModernTech, serving the southeastern US.

     --RSN

 

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# re: Bentley to Acquire A+ Integrated Solutions; Only One Independent Bentley Reseller Remains in US

2/1/2006 11:04 AM by Evan Yares
Archway Systems, in California, is still a Bentley reseller, as is Haber Group, a small reseller in the northeast, and and Online Technology, in Toronto. I understand that there are about 80 resellers in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa areas.

I spoke to Tom Lazear of Archway about his relationship with Bentley. He told me "We've been selling MicroStation for 13 years. We love the product, and know the customers."

Like any other CAD VAR, Archway is at the mercy of its suppliers. At any time, Bentley could decide to pull the plug on resellers in North America. Yet, Bentley seems to treat their resellers with respect. Another CAD vendor might have simply terminated A+ Integrated Systems, and set up their own office. Bentley paid the price to acquire them.

In a short term economic analysis, it might have cost more for Bentley to do what it did. But, then, Bentley has the luxury of being a privately held company -- and being able to the right thing, not just the expedient thing.

# re: Bentley to Acquire A+ Integrated Solutions; US Dealer Network Dwindles

2/2/2006 5:45 AM by Greg Riddle
Evan -please do more research before posting misinformation. Bentley management is very focused to go public, but there revenue model is so focused to DOT's. You should ask some smaller and mid level customers what they think of Bentley's direct model. Where do they get training? Etc..

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