Dear Colleagues,

We are very pleased to release AMPAC 9 to our user community! It is the result of several years of development and testing and is (not unexpectedly!) the best version we have ever released.

Several major additions have been made to AMPAC’s capabilities. We have also added a number of smaller features and upgrades in response to your suggestions and requests. See “New Features” for a complete listing.

We have added the newly-developed PM6 and RM1 semiempirical models. PM6 is especially important in that it includes elements up through Bismuth (excluding the lanthanides). This will greatly extend the reach of AMPAC, especially important for biological molecules and catalysis.

AMPAC’s Graphical User Interface (AGUI) has also been extended and enhanced to support all of the new features. We have also kept pace with the added capabilities of Gaussian® g09™. AGUI remains a complete interface for g09™ and its successors.

In recognition of the changing computing environment that we all live in, we have restructured our licensing policies to reflect your needs. We have standardized categories on computing power and will define that via the number of computing elements (cores) in a particular machine. Please see our price lists online at http://www.semichem.com/ampac/pricing.php/.

It’s important to us that as many people as possible get AMPAC in their hands, so we provide generous and flexible site licenses for every class of computer. Semichem™ has also established a single-user site license category for academic institutions that encourages use of AMPAC in lab/class settings.

Again, thanks for your support for the past 16 years. Let us know what you think about AMPAC 9. We are always pleased to hear from you!