Microsoft has joined Energistics, an international organization focused on driving exploration and production (E&P) information sharing, process integration and collaboration, throwing its weight behind existing efforts to standardize the oil and gas industry. The collaboration is designed to deliver additional momentum to the work that the Redmond company and industry partners have poured into creating a unifying platform, set up to bridge members of the oil and gas industry worldwide.

Randy Clark, president and CEO of Energistics applauded the move from Microsoft, and noted that the software giant would provide help needed for the reference implementation of Energetics’ standards. “As a body which facilitates an inclusive user community for collaborative technologies, we are keen to draw on Microsoft’s experience in the industry to help facilitate the development and deployment of open data exchange standards in addressing information challenges,” stated Clark.

Specifically, Microsoft and its partners will be tapped for their existing expertise in graduating technologies and software solutions to the mainstream oil and gas industry. According to the software giant, the focus of the collaboration will be placed on delivering the reference implementation of Energistics’ standards: Wellsite Information Transfer Standard Markup Language (WITSML) and Production Markup Language (PRODML).

Standardization in the oil and gas industry is synonymous with enhancing data sharing and boosting workflow efficiency, underlined Catherine Madden, senior research analyst at IDC Energy Insights. It will be through standards such as PRODML that oil and gas companies will be able to improve data exchange.

“The oil and gas industry is undergoing massive changes,” added Albrecht “Ali” Ferling, Ph.D., managing director, Worldwide Oil and Gas Industries at Microsoft. “By helping the industry adopt standards, Microsoft believes the industry can drive down cost by improving interoperability and building a platform for collaboration and communication. Our customers benefit when standards are implemented because their software prices decrease, interoperability increases and adoption hurdles are lowered. As a result, they will be able to better execute their E&P information sharing and business process integration strategies.”