AspenTech Announces that BASF is First Customer to Deploy aspenONE Using Microsoft Application Virtualization Technology

-The World’s Leading Chemical Company and Long-Time Customer Uses Virtualization to Shorten Deployment Time and Accelerate Cost Savings and Performance Improvements from aspenONE-

Reading, UK: 3 November 2008 – Aspen Technology, Inc. today announces that the first deployment of aspenONE using Microsoft Application Virtualization was completed by long-time customer BASF.

The world’s leading chemical company used Microsoft virtualisation to accelerate how quickly its worldwide process engineering team can begin using and realising value from new releases and updates to the aspenONE Process Engineering suite.

BASF engineers throughout the world have used aspenONE for years to quickly create higher quality process modeling simulations, costing and sizing activities, which improves plant design and optimises production.

Now, BASF can achieve additional IT and operational cost savings and faster performance improvements, leveraging Microsoft Application Virtualization.

Microsoft’s virtualisation technology decouples applications from operating systems and runs software as network services, making applications available whenever and wherever they are needed even when disconnected from the network.

Supporting Quotes:
Peter Michael Gress, Senior Vice President of Engineering at BASF
“We run some of the largest and most complex process simulations in the chemical industry, which makes it essential to have the right IT infrastructure and applications in place. BASF relies on AspenTech’s aspenONE Process Engineering suite to develop and run world-class operations. By virtualising the solution, we can more quickly gain insights into plant and equipment behavior to optimise decision making, reduce capital and operating costs, increase engineering efficiency and quality, and accelerate time-to-market.”

Chris Colyer, Microsoft Director of Worldwide Manufacturing Operations
“Our partnership with AspenTech has helped BASF address their enterprise IT challenge of ensuring optimal software performance for their process engineers world-wide. By virtualising the deployment of the aspenONE suite at BASF we have helped AspenTech and BASF IT Services increase the speed of deployment of aspenONE by more than 50 percent, while reducing software conflicts and risk associated with migrating to new versions.”

Blair Wheeler, Senior Vice President, Marketing, AspenTech
“This initiative reinforces AspenTech’s commitment to make our software easier to deploy and use across the enterprise. The world’s leading process manufacturing companies rely on the powerful optimisation functionality of aspenONE, and our partnership with Microsoft enables us to deliver more value to industry-leading manufacturers such as BASF.”

Supporting Resources:

To view BASF engineers discuss how the aspenONE Process Engineering solution helps optimise their plant designs and production processes, go to:
http://www.aspentech.com/corporate/customervideos.cfm?customerVideo=basf

To learn how virtualisation of aspenONE accelerated how quickly BASF’s engineers began using and realising value and improved ROI from the aspenONE, go to:
http://www.aspentech.com/case_files/BASF_Case_study.pdf

To learn about the aspenONE Process Engineering solution, go to:
http://www.aspentech.com/solutions/industry_solutions/chemicals/aspenone_process_engineering.cfm

To view the press release announcing how the latest version of aspenONE uses Microsoft technologies for faster deployment of enterprise software for process manufacturers, go to: http://www.aspentech.com/publication_files/azpn_pr_41508.pdf

About BASF
BASF is the world’s leading chemical company: The Chemical Company. Its portfolio ranges from oil and gas to chemicals, plastics, performance products, agricultural products and fine chemicals. As a reliable partner BASF helps its customers in virtually all industries to be more successful. With its high-value products and intelligent solutions, BASF plays an important role in finding answers to global challenges such as climate protection, energy efficiency, nutrition and mobility. BASF has more than 95,000 employees and posted sales of almost €58 billion in 2007. BASF shares are traded on the stock exchanges in Frankfurt (BAS), London (BFA) and Zurich (AN). Further information on BASF is available at www.basf.com.

About AspenTech
AspenTech is a leading supplier of software that optimises process manufacturing. With integrated aspenONE solutions, process manufacturers can implement best practices for optimising their engineering, manufacturing and supply chain operations. As a result, AspenTech customers are better able to increase capacity, improve margins, reduce costs and become more energy efficient. To see how the world’s leading process manufacturers rely on AspenTech to achieve their operational excellence goals, visit www.aspentech.com.

###

© 2008 Aspen Technology, Inc. AspenTech, aspenONE and the Aspen leaf logo are trademarks of Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Contacts:
Aspen Technology, Ltd
Ann Morgan
AspenTech
+44 (0)1189 226510
ann.morgan {at} aspentech(.)com

EMEA Press Enquiries
Sharon Entwistle
The Whiteoaks Consultancy
+44 (0) 1252 727313
sharone {at} whiteoaks.co(.)uk