Landmark History

Landmark now has a brand new web site. You will be redirected there in 7 seconds. Or you can click here here to go there right now.

Landmark - Today and Tomorrow

We are pleased to announce the launch of our new Landmark website. You will be redirected to the new location shortly.

Since 1984, Landmark has broadened its offerings to encompass the entire upstream industry, including reservoir management and production optimization. Landmark has also added consultants to help clients improve all aspects of their businesses.

As exploration and production challenges evolve, every Landmark group will continue to meet them. Landmark technologies are helping companies replace reserves by extending the life of mature fields and reducing the risks of developing smaller, deeper prospects. As your veteran employees retire, Landmark consultants can close the talent gap by managing entire projects and helping train new professionals. The Information Management and Infrastructure group is pioneering real-time data sharing that will make remote sites feel like they're just down the hall.

Landmark helps bring together best practices with best processes to maximize efficiencies across workflow, and around the world

Introduction
How It All Began
The Landmark System
From R&D to Manufacturing and Marketing
Building a Foundation for Multidisciplinary Integration
Integrating Geophysics and Geology (1990 – 1994)
Integrating Geoscience and Engineering (1995 – 2002)
DecisionSpace® Environment Leads Landmark's Future
Landmark - Today and Tomorrow

Introduction
Digital computers first made their way into the search for oil and gas in about 1959; about a hundred years after Drake drilled his famous Titusville, Pennsylvania well. An information technology revolution was sparked that continues at a rapid pace to this day.

The E&P information technology age is often separated into three fundamental periods:
1956 – 1980 – Mainframe computing era
1981 – 1989 – Standalone computing era
1990 – present – Technical data integration era

Each era brought evolutionary and revolutionary advances in E&P technology, enabling energy companies to achieve new levels of productivity and competitive adaptability.

Midway through the E&P Information Age and at approximately the start of the second era - July 15, 1982 to be exact - an entrepreneurial Houston-based company, Landmark Graphics Corp., was born. Two years later, Landmark introduced the first-ever interactive 3-D seismic interpretation workstation in which the available tools equaled the task at hand. With the power of an integrated system of computer hardware and software, interpreters finally were able to do what they were trained to do – formulate and test hypotheses and synthesize conclusions about the location of oil and gas.

This, then, is the story of Landmark Graphics, from its four founders to scores of dedicated employees having the brightest and most creative minds in the energy industry and a few brave venture capitalists who came together to transform a vision into reality.

How It All Began
Landmark actually began by melding two worlds into one; there was the one world of John O. Mouton and H.A. "Andy" Hildebrand while the other was that of H. Roice Nelson and Bob Limbaugh.

One evening in mid-1982, John Mouton, Andy Hildebrand and Roice Nelson huddled together to thrash out an idea that was of interest to each of them. It was one of those fortunate occasions when the right talents came together in the right place at the right time. By the time the session came to a close, the three agreed to merge their expertise in an entrepreneurial venture.

Over the next few months, the four founders put together a business plan and began a search for venture capital investors. Meanwhile, each of the founders contributed $10,000 – some of them having to borrow the money from family – to get the company incorporated.

The Landmark System
The product that Landmark was creating had never been built before; had never even been conceived of before and it all started in the mind of one very rare individual, Roice Nelson. He had the ability to visualize things in his mind even though they had never existed previously.

Although the venture capitalists were committed to Landmark, they required solid results. The second million of their commitment would not arrive until the company actually produced a system for the 1983 SEG Annual Meeting in Las Vegas. It was a make or break event for Landmark.

Landmark created quite a stir at the 1983 SEG meeting. They heard everything from, "It'll never work," to "I want one now." Despite the naysayers, the systems began selling.

In August 1984, Landmark shipped three interactive workstations: one to Melbourne, another machine to London and the third one, to Dallas. Barely more than two years after their first brainstorming session, the "original four" had demonstrated to an international market that their product could satisfy a critical need in the energy industry.

The systems were priced at $240,000. Andy Hildebrand said, "Bob Limbaugh set the price, mostly because they were expensive to assemble. It was also because Bob thought the market would bear it, and he was right."

In many ways, Bob Limbaugh established some of the positive characteristics of Landmark. He had an absolute conviction that marketing is important and it has to be done with dignity and with an understanding of what the customer wants and needs. The early Landmarkers taught the rest of the industry by example.

From R&D to Manufacturing and Marketing
The founders and investors also realized the need to add senior management talent to the mix of skills. Gene Ennis had worked closely with the geophysical industry his entire career at Texas Instruments. One day, Jon Bayless, who at the time was Chairman of Landmark's Board of Directors, called Gene and asked him if he would consider looking at an opportunity. Gene went over and talked to the Landmark guys – more out of curiosity than anything else. "I wasn't really seriously thinking about leaving T.I., but I got so excited over their ideas and plans that I resigned from T.I. two weeks later and joined Landmark," said Gene.

Shortly after Ennis arrived, in the fall of 1984, he was appointed president and chief executive officer, a post he held until 1992, leaving the founders free to improve the product and explore new applications.

In December of 1984, just four months after shipping its first systems, the company of 24 employees, working in a small complex in Houston, recorded its first profitable month. In fiscal 1984/1985, the first full year of production, the company achieved revenues of $6 million and chalked up a solid four quarters of profitability.

That year also brought important product enhancements, including new software for 2-D seismic interpretation and the addition of optical disk storage and networking capabilities. Major oil companies began ordering multiple workstations and Landmark added offices in Calgary and London to effectively service the worldwide operations of those large, diverse customers. By the end of 1985, Landmark totaled 61 employees in three countries.

In fiscal 1985/1986, revenues grew to $12 million as the customer base expanded to include such major petroleum producers as Mobil Oil, Royal Dutch Shell, Amoco and Texaco. As wellhead prices continued to drop, improving drilling decisions became ever more important. Increasingly, the Landmark standalone workstation met the needs of the industry.

Building a Foundation for Multidisciplinary Integration
After revolutionizing 3-D interpretation, Landmark released a complete standalone system for 2-D seismic interpretation in 1987, and officially became a two-product company. From the very beginning, Landmark's founders had a vision of integrating all of the technical E&P disciplines; i.e., geophysics, geology and engineering. That vision, enlarged to include the entire E&P enterprise, drives the company to this day.

OpenWorks™, released in 1989, became the foundation for all of the company's integrated information management solutions. It provided a common user interface for E&P applications, a common data model or relational database and set of data management tools, including patented interprocess communication technology. Not only did Landmark adopt OpenWorks for its own second-generation software, but also some of the large oil companies began to use the OpenWorks Developer's Toolkit for their proprietary programs and other vendors for third-party applications.

Integrating Geophysics and Geology (1990 – 1994)
During the 1990s, Landmark pursued its vision of technical integration in two phases; first, by integrating geophysics with geology (1990 – 1994); then, by integrating the geoscience disciplines with petroleum engineering (1995 – 2002).

The spread of synergistic, cross-functional "asset teams" in the early 90s sparked increased interest in Landmark's unique integrated approach. Following its successful 1990 entry into geology, Landmark strategically expanded its software portfolio through new development and acquisition of market leaders in related geoscience disciplines. The acquisitions included ExploiTech, Inc., a consulting firm that specialized in integrated E&P services. Additional acquisitions during this period of time were Petroleum Computing, Inc. specialists in well log software and consulting services; and Zycor, the market leader in interactive mapping/modeling software for subsurface geology.

Integration became Landmark's key differentiator in a market loaded with standalone applications. Integration took on numerous practical forms, including streamlined data transfer between applications, common user interface design, shared algorithms and display methods and ultimately, seamless data sharing by way of the common OpenWorks database.

It was during this period of time that Landmark's first application to bridge geology and geophysics emerged on the scene. An early synthetic seismogram tool, MIRA, was released in 1993. As a result, geophysicists could better tie well data with seismic and instantly view new well logs, tops and picks in the time domain while geologists could view seismic interpretations in depth.

As new applications became part of the Landmark family, the underlying OpenWorks data model was systematically expanded to accommodate additional E&P data types. To provide asset team members with easier access to the growing variety of project data stored in OpenWorks, the first map-based, interactive data browsing and query application was released in 1993. Users began spending less time searching for data and more time interpreting it.

As the RISC-based workstation architecture emerged in the mid-1990s and replaced costly mainframes, Landmark expanded its footprint in the upstream software space by acquiring Advance Geophysical in 1994.  Advance, with its industry leading seismic processing products ProMAX® and MicroMAX, provided a perfect seismic delivery complement to Landmark’s interpretation tools.

With smaller targets, few geoscientists and more data to interpret than ever before, oil companies – large and small – were turning to computers and advanced software for answers. Landmark products allowed geoscientists and engineers to image the structures below the earth's surface before drilling expensive wells. The result: higher success ratios and dramatically lower finding costs.

Integrating Geoscience and Engineering (1995 – 2002)
Landmark' s recognition as the world's leading supplier of exploration and production and production information technology continued to grow throughout this period of time. Before 1995, Landmark software focused mainly on the needs of geologists and geophysicists. During 1995, however, the company increased its focus and made decisive moves into several petroleum engineering markets, while advancing its lead in the traditional markets.

To preserve its technological and market edge, Landmark continued to acquire proven technology and software companies whose products complemented its own and furthered its lead. As the industry accelerated its reliance on computer technology, there was a growing need for smaller-scale systems to solve basic geological and engineering problems, as well as Landmark's traditional solutions designed for rigorous demands of complex reservoir characterization. During 1995, GeoGraphix was acquired by Landmark to fulfill the needs in the smaller-scale systems market.

On July 1, 1996, Halliburton Company and Landmark jointly announced that the two companies signed a definitive agreement providing for the acquisition of Landmark by Halliburton. Under the agreement, Landmark would be operated as a wholly owned subsidiary of Halliburton with Bob Peebler continuing as president and CEO of Landmark.

Halliburton's acquisition of Landmark was completed and announced to the business world on October 4, 1996. Dick Cheney, Halliburton's chairman of the board and CEO at the time said, "Landmark's capabilities and expertise as the leading supplier of integrated exploration and production information systems and professional services to the petroleum industry will complement Halliburton's leadership position in providing a broad range of key services designed to meet the current and future needs of the energy industry."

Landmark launched a new era of integrated information management technology in 1998 in reply to E&P managers who were asking Landmark for an integrated solution to help them manage their local, regional and enterprise-wide data and to help shorten cycle times so their asset teams have more time to spend on value-added interpretation activities.

To be competitive in the oil and gas markets of 2000, E&P companies were constantly searching for ways to close the technical gap between processing and interpretation. In response to those demands, Landmark released new, innovative software program for integrating seismic and geologic data. By making it possible for interpreters to integrate much of the current technology directly into their workflow, the new Landmark software and services gave the customers the technological edge they needed in order to make better business decisions.

Probably the most significant commitment to date by a major technology provider in the oil and gas industry was made by Landmark during the 2001 Society of Exploration Geophysicists Annual Meeting when it announced plans to support the "open source" Linux operating system. In making the announcement, Compaq, Dell, EMC, IBM, Intel and Network Appliance were said to be working with Landmark to offer a broad range of optimized Linux solutions, including workstations, servers and storage.

DecisionSpace® Environment Leads Landmark's Future
Landmark continues its history of innovation with the DecisionSpace environment. Landmark delivered the first DecisionSpace offerings in 2003. When fully realized, DecisionSpace technology will be a complete environment of highly integrated, modular applications based on patented algorithms, high science and an open integration platform. Data will flow between disciplines; knowledge will flow through companies; and, most important, more hydrocarbons will flow through wells and pipelines. Landmark - Today and Tomorrow

Since 1984, Landmark has broadened its offerings to encompass the entire upstream industry, including reservoir management and production optimization. Landmark has also added consultants to help clients improve all aspects of their businesses.

As exploration and production challenges evolve, every Landmark group will continue to meet them. Landmark technologies are helping companies replace reserves by extending the life of mature fields and reducing the risks of developing smaller, deeper prospects. As your veteran employees retire, Landmark consultants can close the talent gap by managing entire projects and helping train new professionals. The Information Management and Infrastructure group is pioneering real-time data sharing that will make remote sites feel like they're just down the hall.