(San Diego CA. November 6, 2003) – The Service & Support Professionals Association (SSPA), the leading industry Association for IT support professionals, announced today that Aspen Technology (Nasdaq: AZPN), was recognized for their customer service excellence with a SSPA STAR Award at the recently held SSPA Conference@Savannah. Chosen as the best in what they do, Aspen Technology was honored for delivering exemplary technical support to their customers and presented with a 2003 STAR Award in the Complex Support Applications category.

The winner in the Complex Support Applications category delivers extremely complex technical support for extremely complex applications in extremely complex environments. The typical applicant company can be identified by senior level technical support representatives that hold advanced degrees and interface with senior level customers in the engineering and scientific fields. Customer call volume is very low due to the complexity of each support request and the time it takes to identify and resolve each issue.

“The SSPA STAR Award winners provide a showcase of the top talent within our industry; and serves as the highest form of recognition they can receive in the service and support industry.” said Bill Rose, SSPA Founder/CEO. “As this year’s winner in the Complex Support Category, Aspen Technology has proven that they are an exceptional company that delivers world-class services.”

“AspenTech is both honored and excited to have received the SSPA STAR Award for the third consecutive year,” said Lee Riley, Vice President of Global Customer Support and Training, AspenTech. “Our Support team is totally dedicated to customer success, and provides support for some of the most complex, mission-critical solutions in the software industry. Winning the STAR Award once again reflects our commitment to continuously improving the service we deliver, and to ensuring that AspenTech’s process industry customers realize maximum value from our solutions.”

All SSPA Member companies are eligible to nominate themselves in any number of the categories -- Sustained Performance; High Call Volume; Most Improved; Complex Support Applications; Outsource Support Provider; Innovative Support; Mission Critical Support: Small/Emerging Company and Support Technology Vendor. SSPA provides each Applicant with an electronic application as a benchmark/guideline. The STAR Award Applicants take this task very seriously and spend a considerable amount of time on this arduous, but rewarding process. Many non-winners have said that, even though they did not win an Award, the whole process was well worth the time and effort. They indicate they learned a lot from the process and were able to discover in what areas they can use improvement. For more information on the SSPA STAR Awards please visit www.thesspa.com or send an email to info@thesspa.com.

About Aspen Technology, Inc.
Aspen Technology, Inc. provides industry-leading software and implementation services that enable process companies to increase efficiency and profitability. AspenTech's engineering product line is used to design and improve plants and processes, maximizing returns throughout an asset’s operating life. Its manufacturing/supply chain product line allows companies to increase margins in their plants and supply chains, by managing customer demand, optimizing production, and streamlining the delivery of finished products. These two offerings are combined to create solutions for enterprise operations management (EOM), integrated enterprise-wide systems that provide process manufacturers with the capability to dramatically improve their operating performance. Over 1,500 leading companies already rely on AspenTech's software, including Aventis, Bayer, BASF, BP, ChevronTexaco, Dow Chemical, DuPont, ExxonMobil, Fluor, Foster Wheeler, GlaxoSmithKline, Shell, and Total. For more information, visit www.aspentech.com.

About SSPA
Founded in 1989, the Service & Support Professionals Association (SSPA) was formed to focus on the specific needs of service executives who are responsible for support centers and overall customer relations. Today, the SSPA represents over 21,600 service professionals at 2,500 support centers worldwide. These executives look to SSPA to provide insight into the future of support services, a road map of best practices within our industry and access to the best service and support vendors. SSPA has become the center of support providing a reliable and comprehensive resource for news, research, benchmarking, standards and collaboration.

SSPA was created for professionals, managers and executives that make their living in the IT support services community. It is not a generic, one-size-fits all website where nobody ever feels like they belong. SSPA is dynamic, interactive, living resource specifically designed for the unique needs of support professionals. This exciting virtual community creates a forum for constant interaction with peers, industry experts, technology vendors and much more. For more information regarding the SSPA and other related divisions, log on to www.thesspa.com or send an email to info@thesspa.com.