A little over ten years ago, I was shown a brief demonstration of Maple and I was astounded if not shocked by what it could do and my imagination immediately kicked into overdrive with ideas on how this unique technology could transform the way people work. My imagination has not settled down since.

These are exciting times for Maplesoft. With the introduction of an outstanding new release of Maple and a revolutionary technology MapleSim for modeling and simulation, we’re poised to launch a new generation of innovation and productivity for the engineering and mathematics community.

For those of us who were educated with punch card computers, this new generation of modeling tools is nothing short of miraculous. During my time as a design engineer in the aerospace and communications industries, math was literally an impediment to innovation. It was a beast that needed to be slain every time you started a design project. Whether it was deriving the equations of motion for a complex mechanism or ensuring unit consistency within all my calculations, it took days and weeks to get the math right. But we got the job done.

Maple 12 and MapleSim for me is essentially a grand “what if?”. Not in the calculation and analysis sense – those benefits are obvious, but it’s a more philosophical “what if?”. What if I had access to such powerful tools when I designed that device? What could I have achieved with the significant time savings and increased accuracy? The world is about to answer these questions and all of us at Maplesoft are eagerly anticipating the wave of new applications and techniques spawned from these new products.

Math will no longer be an impediment for innovation but through MapleSim, it becomes a catalyst and accelerator for innovation. In many ways, this new paradigm represents a real convergence of our company’s past, the global reality present, and the potential for the future. The work of the generation of mathematicians and computer scientists who built our algorithms  are meeting modern engineering design challenges emerging from a complex modern world. Many believe that the effective deployment of more sophisticated mathematical techniques are critical to the solution and the new ideas embodied in Maple 12 and MapleSim offers a real advantage.

This type of sea change is rare and we feel very privileged to be at the heart of this change. I invite all of you to join us for this exciting new journey and I invite all to this new blog stream. You’ll get a closer look at the inner workings of our company and have a chance to voice your opinions. We look forward to your feedback.