The IAI started in 1994 as an industry consortium of 12 US companies invited by
Autodesk to advise on developing a set of C++ classes to support integrated application development. The other founding members were
AT&T; Archibus;
Carrier Corporation;
Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum (HOK);
Honeywell;
Jaros, Baum & Bolles (JB&B);
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory;
Primavera Systems; Softdesk;
Timberline Software Corp; and Tishman Research Corp (part of
Tishman Realty & Construction). This
Industry Alliance for Interoperability opened membership to all interested parties in September 1995 and in May 1996 was renamed the
International Alliance for Interoperability The first version of IFC was published in June 1996 at which point 26 companies, including Autodesk,
Bentley,
Nemetschek and IEZ, committed to making their software IFC-compliant. In 2005, partly because its members felt the IAI name was too long and complex for people to understand, it was renamed
buildingSMART. It has regional chapters in Europe, North America, Australia, Asia and the Middle East. == Activities ==