3D CAD NEWS

It is time for another episode of "Who Wants to Be Top Marketeer at Bentley!" This year's contestant is a nice guy (they are all nice guys) named Edward Mueller, who comes in with the title Chief Marketing Officer. He's been around IT marketeering for 20 years or so, his bio says. Most recently he was chief marketeer for Everdream; its dream came true recently when it was acquired by Dell Computer (which explains why he is available to Bentley; marketeers are always cast aside like yesterday's newspaper in acquisitions).

The game works like this. We (virtually and metaphorically) shove Ed (Ed, can we call you Ed?) into a revolving door. Then the audience--our readers--start laying bets on how long he can last. Either Ed gets dizzy reviewing the marketing history at Bentley and jumps out the door immediately, or he gets pushed the first time Greg Bentley thinks revenue is slumping and blames it on whatever poor schulmp happens to be chief marketeer at the time. Either way, Ed is a short-timer and everybody down the marketeering chain of command at Bentley knows it.

Ed Mueller gets his shot at the Bentley Revolving Door any moment now.

It didn't used to be this way. At one time Bentley's chief marketeer was the one and only Grand Poobah of CAD Marketeers, the esteemed Yoav Etiel. He launched some promotional campaigns that to this day bring tears to the eye. Who can forget the beautiful and/or handsome models (some of them were both) in Viecon shirts at A|E|C SYSTEMS 2001? Who can forget the Bentley bus circling the convention center when Autodesk University was in Philadelphia? This was grand and heady marketeering, the kind of in-your-face promotions that skyrocketed Bentley sales in the 1990s. But even a Grand Poobah of Marketeers can't last forever at Bentley. There was a power struggle over Viecon (their late entry in the online project management sweepstakes that soon after faded into oblivion), and Yoav Etiel became the first winner/loser (they are one in the same) of "Who Wants to Be Top Marketeer at Bentley!" Today Yoav Etiel is happy and successful, selling real estate in his native Israel when not introducing hot Israeli software prospects to VC in the USA.

So, rest at ease, Ed; there is life after Bentley. Just don't count on much of a life while you are there.