Chemical Industry Blog

I sat in on Ben Vollmer's session today at Convergence today. The topic was focused on how to integrate Dynamics CRM into Microsoft Office SharePoint Server . He started the session asking how many folks in the room (probably about 200-300 people) had...

I am always looking for new chemical industry blogs. There are a ton of excellent chemistry research blogs out there, but you don't find as many on the industry in general. ICIS has a nice collection of blogs ranging from BioFuels, Asia and India, to...

With the launch of Microsoft unified communications products and services this week, we also published a case study about Dow Corning's early-adopter experience deploying Office Communication Server 2007 with Office Communicator 2007 to ther Engineered...

As a follow up to my post about saving money with Unified Communications, I stumbled across a site we created that shares the power of unified communications with one of our LifeCams.  It showcases three usage scenarios:  on the road, keep it...

Guest blogging today is Dave Lassiter.  Dave is our Solutions Director for Manufacturing & Resources and is responsible for solutions that we take to multiple vertical markets inside of the Manufacturing & Resources sector.  One of those...

Welcome to 2009!  We will kick-off the new year with a webinar titled “Best in Class Portfolio Management Driving New Product Development and R&D Success” .  The webinar will be hosted by Benoit Millet of UMT , and will feature FMC’s implementation...

On October 8th and 9th in Atlanta, Georgia, Microsoft is sponsoring the Strategic Marketing and eMarketing in the Chemical Industry conference put on by Jacob Fleming. I will be speaking on the eMarketing platform and what chemical companies can do today...

I was with one of my chemical customers this week in a strategy briefing around improving their innovation processes and external R&D collaboration. The topic of Web 2.0 (or social computing) capabilities - roughly translated to online communities...

A colleague of mine, Todd Meadows, sent me a link to this newsletter which provides more details on the integration between Siemens PLM Software, Teamcenter Express and Microsoft Office applications. Having this level of integration will make Teamcenter...

More and more, my chemical industry discussions have turned to innovation and supporting the innovation process. Many chemical companies are reinvigorating their innovation process (undoubtedly some more quickly and with more focus than others), and there...

Hello from the LogiChem 2007 conference in Scottsdale, Arizona! The morning kicked off with Jack Weiss, CEO of Microsoft partner WAM systems , who introduced the speakers and set the stage by discussing industry macro issues such as M&A, the rise...

We are growing the chemical team and are looking to add a new solution specialist that will call on both Oil & Gas and Chemical accounts. If you are interested in joining a terrific team in a great industry, check out the job description . This is...

Okay, another off-topic post. But, if you follow the chemical industry closer than you follow Microsoft you may not have seen some of the press announcements about Live Mesh . Take a look to learn about it. My first usage scenario in the tech preview...

This past week, we released Windows Vista adoption case studies for Eastman Chemical and PPG . The Eastman story focuses on the timing of their refresh cycle and their evaluation of whether to stay on Windows XP or move to Vista. The Vista decision came...

I was on a quasi-vacation over the past couple of weeks and am just catching up on my periodicals. A June 16, 2008 article in ChemWeek titled Regulatory Challenges Top ACC agenda (subscription required, I believe) caught my attention. It quoted Brian...

Our US Manufacturing & Resources General Manager, Tyler Bryson, launched his blog earlier today here as a way to connect you to "innovations and ideas from across Microsoft in Manufacturing". Track his blog as he gets it launched off the ground. I...

I didn't realize it until today, but last week marked the 1-year anniversary of this chemical blog. We launched our focus in the chemical vertical last year, and I believe we've made a lot of progress building relationships and sharing our story on how...

I was reading a colleague's blog the other day who was excited to be home after a bunch of travel so that he could get back to blogging. I find it the opposite - I tend to blog more when I travel than I do when I am home. As you can tell, I have been...

We issued a press release today about our innovation management initiative. I have blogged about this a few times in the past in one form or another. Our innovation management initiative is a cross-industry initiative and is really aimed at how our customers...

We released the Podcasting Kit for SharePoint to our CodePlex site this week. I've seen a growing interest in implementing social media scenarios internally for chemical companies to encourage peer-sharing of best practices. This project was born out...

This scenario comes up quite a bit in the chemical industry - IT management of remote offices where the number of people in the office is low. We recently released a case study with LaFarge North America on how they approached this challenge using Windows...

The environment is a key priority for the chemical industry , and I get a lot of interest and questions about ways Microsoft and our partners are using software and technology to help customers either lessen their impact on the environment - or accelerate...

Coincidentally to my last post, we just released a case study showing how LyondellBasell was able to meet the new air-quality requirements in Southeast, Texas using the VisionMonitor Compliance Intelligence solution written by one of our partners, VisionMonitor...

As a companion to our new environmental site we launched earlier, the team has also launched a companion blog where they will post on-going information about how Microsoft and our partners can help you acheive your environmental goals.

On behalf of the Microsoft team, congratulations to Mike Jones, President of GTS Services for being named a top performer under 40 by AutoGlass Magazine (PPG press release) , and thank you for being a great Microsoft partner. Mike spun up a new technology...