Leading Energy Organizations Back BizTalk Framework

SAN ANTONIO, Sept. 20, 1999 — Today at the Petroleum Industry Data Exchange Conference, Microsoft Corp. announced broad energy industry support for the BizTalk TM Framework for e-commerce and application integration. The American Petroleum Institute (API) and leading energy technology providers have declared the BizTalk Framework their e-commerce integration guideline for the future.

“We chose to be on the BizTalk steering committee since it had the best collection of founding organizations and the best commitment to standards for vertical markets,” said Kendra Martin, director of Finance, Accounting and Electronic Business for the American Petroleum Institute. “With BizTalk, we believe we can work with energy companies and other standards bodies to quickly and effectively reap the greatest potential of XML for e-commerce.”

Martin and others indicated the potential benefits of BizTalk for the petroleum industry:

  • Easier integration of new, acquired or merged entities

  • Accelerated pace at which new services can be extended to customers

  • Operational agility through unifying multiple business units and/or locations

  • Richer relationships with customers and partners and the ability to form new business relationships through e-commerce

Industry-standards bodies and technology companies are also endorsing the BizTalk Framework and are planning to develop or interoperate with specific BizTalk Framework-based schemas for the industry. The American Petroleum Institute, a major national trade association representing the entire petroleum industry, is a charter member of the BizTalk Framework steering committee and has been integral in helping spearhead the effort within the energy industry. In addition, leading technology and consulting companies such as Ariba Inc., Cambridge Management Consulting, Commerce One Inc., Compaq Computer Corp., Concur Technologies Inc., EMC, Enermetrix.com, ESRI Corp., Exodus Communications, IPNet Solutions Inc., J.D. Edwards, OSI Software, Phonoscope Communications, Resource 2000, Technomation, Tobin International Ltd., Webridge Inc. and Wyle Systems have stated their intent to develop or work with BizTalk Framework schemas and incorporate them into their technology solutions.

“The support for BizTalk from standards groups like API and other industry customers will drive the adoption of XML for e-commerce and application integration in the energy industry,” said Scott Fawcett, global industry manager for Energy at Microsoft. “Establishing a framework like BizTalk that makes it easier to implement XML in a consistent way will allow these companies to tightly integrate their technical operations with their business processes, effectively control and monitor their productivity, and distribute crucial information to a wide-area customer and partner base.”

Introduced in March, the BizTalk Framework makes it easy for businesses to exchange information between software applications and conduct business over the Internet with trading partners and customers. The BizTalk Framework includes a design framework for implementing an Extensible Markup Language (XML) schema and a set of XML tags used in messages sent between applications. Microsoft, other software companies and industry-standards bodies will use the BizTalk Framework to produce XML schemas in a consistent manner to enable integration across industries and between business systems, regardless of platform, operating system or underlying technology. More information about the BizTalk Framework is available at http://www.biztalk.org/ . More information about Microsoft’s initiatives for BizTalk Framework is available at http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/ .

In addition to enabling e-commerce and application integration with the BizTalk Framework, Microsoft is a core member of COM for Energy for oil field integration, a nonprofit initiative led by Landmark Graphics Corp., PricewaterhouseCoopers, SAP AG and Schlumberger GeoQuest. COM for Energy aims to develop technical specifications that will enable the development, packaging and deployment of reusable application integration components that will allow the integration of disparate geotechnical and business applications used in the exploration and production sector of the energy industry. By linking these specialized “islands of information,” the geotechnical business and the technical domain, companies can streamline their operational business processes and have access to integrated information across the oil field life cycle.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software for personal computers. The company offers a wide range of products and services for business and personal use, each designed with the mission of making it easier and more enjoyable for people to take advantage of the full power of personal computing every day.

Microsoft and BizTalk are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.

Other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ on Microsoft’s corporate information pages.


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