Microsoft to showcase Its latest technology at third international digital oilfield conference 2012 in Muscat

Microsoft will introduce its latest technologies and best practices related to the oil and gas industry that will help customers surpass traditional barriers to make better, faster decisions and achieve greater efficiency level.

Tareq Hijazi, Regional Country Manager for Microsoft in Oman and Bahrain said, "We are pleased to participate in such a prominent event to present our latest technologies and best practices before the Gulf's oil and gas industry leaders. We recognize the strategic importance of Oman oil and gas sector to the national, regional and worldwide economies and we are committed to contributing to its success through building strong alliances with Oman Ministry of Oil and Gas, and the Petroleum Development of Oman".

Welcoming Microsoft's participation in IDOC 2012, H. E. Nasser Bin Khamis Al-Jashmi, Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Oil and Gas, for the Government of Oman, stated, "We are happy to have Microsoft supporting the 3rd IDOC event, participating in the conference sessions, and showcasing their latest products and solutions with our experts and partners. We look forward to benefiting from their expertise, industry know-how and market insights in supporting the vision of the Ministry of Oil and Gas and helping achieve its strategy."

Presenting Microsoft's latest cloud computing offering and Windows Azure, Dr. Ali Ferling, Worldwide Managing Director for Oil and Gas Industries at Microsoft, explained that the upstream oil and gas industry has been experiencing information overload, consequently upstream operators are calling for a simpler and more unified computing environment to help manage information overload.

"We, at Microsoft, are providing the technology and the framework to make implementing digital oilfields an effective reality. One of our latest frameworks is Microsoft Upstream Reference Architecture. MURA is a set of foundational principles that govern an IT architecture structure for the oil and gas industry. It seeks to deliver the consistency needed to support unification and simplification of upstream IT infrastructure, while providing energy companies with the flexibility to innovate and establish competitive differences," he added.

Oil and Gas operators and industry vendors are using Microsoft products to build critical components of the required infrastructure, including visualization, collaboration, data mining, data transformation, and unified communication.

"Cloud computing presents a new opportunity for upstream operator. It will be particularly useful for managing large volume of data like seismic and reservoir. Microsoft Cloud also offers the Azure platform, or 'Windows in the cloud' - which developers can use to build applications running on the Windows Azure operating system, or using its Microsoft SQL Azure relational database. Cloud computing brings the opportunity of enhanced efficiencies, reduced costs, empowering new business model, and making greater productivity possible," concluded Dr. Ferling.