Aspen Technology, Inc. (AZPN.PK)

Aspentech products include Aspen+, Hysys and Aspen Icarus among many others. The entire Aspen suite of programs is available with the AspenOne package and is the best in class. Hysys is the most efficient refinery / petrochemical simulation package for the debottlenecking and design of these processes. Aspen+ is a similar program with its strengths in the basic and specialty chemicals arena but, it also handles refining and petrochemicals. It is the best simulator to use for batch processes as are common in pharma, agricultural, specialty plastics, etc. I am a process engineering manager at an engineering firm and we have used all of the above programs to great benefit. The competitors pale in comparision because Aspen has made full use of the innovative and intuitive power of Windows and their competitors have not. If you factor in time constraints imposed by clients, we know that some of the work done with Hysys would have been literally impossible using another software. Icarus is the state of the art program for estimating the cost of projects. The various programs are integrated also to make transfer of data between them more efficient, thereby speeding the entire engineering process. (Data from simulations can be imported directly into drawings or estimating programs.) The great thing about Aspen is they are the leader, however they are still making continuous outstanding improvements and they respond to our needs. The depth of the chasm between the quality of Aspen products and their competitors is vast and I believe at this point the others will never be able to match the efficiency of the Aspen programs. I have noticed competitors ads in magazines have for some time bordered on desperation and name calling and are specifically targeting the market gainer, Aspen. I know there have been some accounting and management problems in the past but, I am confident Aspentech is straightening these things out. Aspen has a growing list of customers who use its products exclusively both in the operations and engineering areas. It will be the leader for a long time to come.