AspenTech and Microsoft at CERAWeek 2011

This guest post is written by Microsoft Partner AspenTech .

This year, AspenTech celebrates 30 years of optimization. Since our founding in 1981, as an outgrowth of a coal gasification project at MIT by funded a DOE grant in response to the 1970s oil shock, AspenTech has been exclusively focused on energy and other process industries. At this year's CERAWeek, AspenTech joined Microsoft as principal sponsor and shared insights on today's clean energy issues and challenges.

AspenTech Executive Vice President, Antonio Pietri, spoke in the concurrent plenary session, "Policy Tradeoffs for a Low Carbon Future" and AspenTech Senior Vice President, Blair Wheeler, participated in the panel, "Sustainability and the GHG Footprint of Fossil Fuels." On Wednesday night, Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, addressed how technology innovation is enabling energy companies to respond to today's industry challenges.

CERA has stated that much of the world's energy infrastructure needed in 2030 has yet to be built, posing enormous responsibility and opportunity. AspenTech delivers innovative technology solutions built on Microsoft architecture so that energy companies will be able to optimize the effectiveness of new infrastructure as they do with today's infrastructure.

AspenTech and Microsoft are collaborating in a number of areas to make process optimization solutions more accessible, more productive and easier to deploy by taking advantage of the latest advances in technology. For example, being able to deploy key AspenTech products faster via Microsoft's Application Virtualization and leveraging Microsoft HPC Server, companies can accelerate simulations and more quickly determine the optimal choice that yields the highest profitability. AspenTech's solutions also leverage Microsoft SharePoint to facilitate information-sharing and collaboration to optimize the supply chain and plant operations for increased margins.

Microsoft and AspenTech are working together on these and other innovative technologies to create value for customers in the critical energy areas that have been topics of discussion throughout CERAWeek 2011. Through optimization, process manufacturing companies achieve superior business and operational results and are able to better adapt to dynamic market conditions in a shifting global economy.  

Just as the theme for CERAWeek 2011 was about leading the way for energy strategies in a world of change, Microsoft and AspenTech share a focus and commitment to deliver the most innovative technologies that help the energy industry successfully adapt to the industry's transformation.