HOUSTON, TX -- Schlumberger Oilfield Services announced today the opening of its Houston iCenter, a collaboration and virtual-reality center. This new, secure networked collaborative facility enables experts to maximize the use of realtime initiatives to enhance decision-making and planned actions. "Our new iCenter will empower clients to make critical, informed decisions to improve well productivity and reduce uncertainty," said David Mullen, president of Schlumberger Oilfield Services for North and South America. "This latest deployment of our iCenter gives our clients access to leading-edge immersive technology backed by Schlumberger industry domain experts." A team of highly trained Schlumberger specialists integrates computing and collaborative workflows in the iCenter to solve customer problems. By assembling expertise and combining technologies, iCenters will help clients advance their interpretation and visualization capabilities to a new level of efficiency. Designed with the use of ergonomic studies and interviews with personnel, the Houston iCenter features the industry's latest virtual-reality visualization capabilities and project workrooms for well planning and drilling/reservoir optimization. Schlumberger is deploying the iCenter concept globally. In addition to the Houston iCenter, Schlumberger has other implementations of the iCenter in Cambridge, Ridgefield and Stavanger. Available 24/7, iCenters are scalable and range in size and functionality, depending on requirements. In addition to the facility and Schlumberger specialists, clients have access to Schlumberger services and technologies, such as Interact Web Witness,a Web-based data delivery system, PowerSTIM well optimization services, NDS(TM) No Drilling Surprises, which combines geomechanics and drilling expertise, GeoFrame integrated reservoir characterization system and IPAnywhere(R) remote monitoring of production data. For further information visit www.slb.com