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Risk Solver Platform V10.0 for Education Simplifies Teaching and Saves Classroom Time

Simplify Your Teaching of Optimization, Simulation, and More with Risk Solver Platform for Education

Instructors:  Risk Solver Platform V10.0 for Education, a special version of Frontline Systems’ market-leading Risk Solver Platform software for Microsoft Excel, can simplify your life, save classroom time, and enrich your students' experience with optimization, simulation and risk analysis, decision trees and other analytical methods.  And in these tough economic times, it's easy on your academic budget!  Questions?  Read our FAQs for answers.

Dan Fylstra, Frontline Systems’ president, says “We’re ‘opening the floodgates’ for teaching purposes with Risk Solver Platform V10.0.  In the past, only limited capabilities in the Excel Solver and Premium Solver were available for student use.  But now we’re offering our integrated ‘super-product’ at a student price – with some problem size and other restrictions, but on a permanent license basis.”

Breakthrough Integrated Capabilities for Teaching

Risk Solver Platform V10.0 for Education includes:

  • Full Excel Solver compatibility, for worksheet models and VBA macros; the classic Solver Parameters dialog and Risk Solver Platform’s new Ribbon and Task Pane are completely interoperable.
  • A free upgrade for Excel 2010, when Office 2010 is released by Microsoft, in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions, and guaranteed compatibility with new and enhanced Excel 2010 features including Solver.
  • All the capabilities of Risk Solver, Frontline’s powerful product for Monte Carlo simulation and risk analysis, matching or exceeding the capabilities of products like Crystal Ball and @RISK.
  • All the power of Premium Solver Platform, a large superset of Premium Solver and by far the most powerful spreadsheet optimizer, with its PSI interpreter for model analysis and five built-in Solver Engines for linear, quadratic, SOCP, mixed-integer, nonlinear, non-smooth and global optimization.
  • Ability to solve optimization models with uncertainty and recourse decisions, using simulation optimization, stochastic programming, and robust optimization.
  • New integrated sensitivity analysis and decision tree capabilities, developed in cooperation with Prof. Chris Albright (SolverTable), Profs. Stephen Powell and Ken Baker (Sensitivity Toolkit), and Prof. Mike Middleton (TreePlan).
  • A special version of the Gurobi Solver – the ultra-high-performance linear mixed-integer optimizer created by Robert Bixby, Zonghao Gu, and Edward Rothberg of Gurobi Optimization, respected computational scientists and former members of the CPLEX development team.

Tech Support and Textbook Support to Simplify Your Life

Frontline Systems offers direct technical support for you when you're teaching with the software, for your school's IT staff, and for your students during installation.  Let us handle the mechanics of software, so you can concentrate on teaching modeling concepts.  It's all included ... in our super-bargain price!

Risk Solver Platform V10.0 for Education is brand-new -- but textbook support is already available -- with more on the way!  You can use:

  • A new chapter and Excel models created by Prof. Cliff Ragsdale for his popular book Spreadsheet Modeling and Decision Analysis – available online now at http://filebox.vt.edu/users/cragsdal/RSP/SMDA-RSP.zip.
  • New chapters and Excel models created by Profs. Stephen Powell and Ken Baker for their popular text Management Science: The Art of Modeling with Spreadsheets, available online by September 1 for current adopters/users of the text (contact Saran Vernon at svernon@wiley.com).

We anticipate further support for Risk Solver Platform for Education in the forthcoming 2010 editions of several popular textbooks.  And of course, every model you have for the Excel Solver or Premium Solver will work as-is in Risk Solver Platform for Education.  Just open the workbook and solve!

Breakthrough Pricing and Licensing Terms

Risk Solver Platform V10.0 for Education is extremely easy on your budget:  Licenses for students and student lab PCs are available at a breakthrough low student price (email info@solver.com for details):  the same as Frontline’s former Premium Solver for classroom use, and considerably less than Crystal Ball Student Edition, even though Risk Solver Platform offers far more than both combined.

Licenses purchased from Frontline are permanent, not limited to a semester or school year as is often the case with competitive products.  (These licenses do have problem size limits -- see below.)  You won't have to deal with students who purchased used textbooks but found the bundled software license expired, or unexpected price increases that strain your department budget.  And students who receive licenses on their own laptops can continue to use the software after they graduate!

Frontline Systems offers licenses only for purchase by universities for use by their own faculty and students, with a certification that it will be used only for instructional (not administrative or research) purposes.  The minimum license purchase quantity is 10, and the best price is available for 500 or more.

Risk Solver Platform V10.0 for Education has the following limits on capacity and performance:

  • Up to 200 decision variables (continuous, semi-continuous, integer or binary) for optimization
  • Up to 100 constraints, plus bounds on the variables for nonlinear and non-smooth optimization
  • Up to 100 uncertain variables and 50 uncertain functions for Monte Carlo simulation
  • Up to 10 simulations and 10,000 Monte Carlo trials per simulation
  • Maximum one processor core used by Risk Solver Platform’s many parallelized algorithms
  • Plug-in large-scale Solver Engines other than the special Gurobi Solver are not supported
  • Background ‘watermarks’ that say “Not for commercial use” appear on all charts

All problem size limits are controlled through a license code.  If you have specific models that exceed the limits, contact us for a special license code that can raise the limits for a temporary period.

Further Information and Free Evaluation Licenses

For further information on Risk Solver Platform V10.0 for Education, contact us at (888) 831-0333 (U.S. and Canada), 775-831-0300, or info@solver.com.  We'll be pleased to provide free evaluation licenses to faculty members considering adoption of the software.  We can help you with conversion of simulation models you might have created with other software to work with Risk Solver Platform (it's very straightforward).  Read our FAQs for answers to some very common questions.

Having worked so closely with teachers and textbook authors, for so many years, we understand what's important to you.  Dan Fylstra, our president, says "Successful use of our software in MBA programs isn't a sideline for Frontline Systems -- it's a strategic priority."

Risk Solver Platform, Risk Solver and Premium Solver are trademarks of Frontline Systems, Inc.  Gurobi is a trademark of Gurobi Optimization, Inc.  Crystal Ball is a trademark of Oracle Corp.  @RISK is a trademark of Palisade Corp.  CPLEX is a trademark of IBM Corp.