SAS advances enterprise intelligence with significant software release

SAS 9.2 makes industry-leading business intelligence, analytics, data integration more widespread; simpler to deploy and manage

SAS GLOBAL FORUM, SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS  (17 Mar. 2008)  –  SAS today launched SAS® 9.2, the latest evolution in enterprise software. SAS 9.2 combines market-leading advanced analytics, data visualization and collaborative data management capabilities that go beyond standard query-and-reporting BI solutions.

Organizations are under increasing pressure to leverage data and existing IT investments to drive success. SAS helps organizations meet the challenge with this latest enhancement to the industry’s first and most complete Enterprise Intelligence Platform.

“SAS 9.2 is revolutionary and evolutionary,” said Jim Davis, Senior Vice President and CMO at SAS. “Businesses burned by technology vendors more interested in stock prices than customers will appreciate SAS’ unrelenting focus on innovation and meeting customer needs. SAS 9.2 is non-disruptive innovation. It helps companies gather and analyze data and share intelligence for quicker, more accurate business decisions.”

Beginning today with existing SAS customers and continuing throughout 2008, every offering from SAS will become available on SAS 9.2 to transform organizations from report-driven to intelligence-driven.

"With its enhanced analytics and data integration, improved deployment and management, and shared processes that help BI and analytics become even more widespread and useable throughout an organization, SAS 9.2 is a major launch for SAS and its customers," said Henry Morris, Senior Vice President for IDC's Worldwide Software and Services research groups. "The SAS Enterprise Intelligence Platform goes beyond traditional BI in providing a foundation for collaborative data integration, advanced analytics and timely reporting."

What’s new in SAS 9.2?

SAS’ annual investment of more than 20 percent of revenue in research and development ensures that SAS 9.2 will help customers transform how their businesses work and sustain a culture of fact-based decision-making.

SAS 9.2 is built on a foundation of proven, stable and integrated technologies.  Among SAS 9.2's most significant enhancements is:

• The best analytics anywhere are even better. SAS 9.2 gives customers the power to analyze data in more ways with new algorithms and procedures for predictive modeling, forecasting and optimization. They can achieve better model performance, explore complex data with visual queries and interactive graphics, and quickly derive value from large and complex data sets. These technologies help companies achieve what author Tom Davenport calls “competing on analytics,” and what Stanford’s Jeffrey Pfeffer dubs “evidence-based management.” SAS 9.2:

  • provides easy access to Bayesian methods, an approach for using prior information in statistical analyses. No other software vendor provides such convenient access. Bayesian methods are used, for example, to analyze clinical trials data for medical devices. When good prior information exists (e.g., on similar devices), the Bayesian approach may help companies evaluate device effectiveness through smaller, shorter clinical trials, resulting in quicker regulatory approval, faster time to market and significant cost savings.

  • offers a new set of optimization procedures that incorporate powerful algebraic modeling and are ideal for analysts in many industries that need to build complex optimization models to produce best outcomes. For example, investment banks can leverage SAS 9.2’s versatile optimization capabilities to discover the best possible balance between risk and return, a key competitive advantage.

  • includes sophisticated model-selection methods that handle thousands of variables and scale to very large data sets. Variable selection is increasingly important as data volumes grow in size and complexity. With SAS 9.2, organizations can select the best predictors and create precise models that uncover relationships. For example, bank analysts can incorporate thousands of variables from demographic, transactional and account data when creating models to predict customer profitability. SAS 9.2 makes it easier to reduce the set of variables to the essential predictors and create an accurate model that’s easy to understand, maintain and deploy.

Other SAS 9.2 enhancements will include:

• BI more readily available enterprisewide. SAS 9.2 helps users become more self sufficient with simpler, role-based interfaces. Embedding analytics into business processes and sharing results more easily enhances productivity and performance.

• SAS 9.2 breaks down data silos through enhanced collaboration in data integration. Components can be reused more easily and users can monitor, communicate and trouble-shoot more efficiently.

• Improved deployment, configuration and administration capabilities, including a new wizard-based interface, and adherence to standards for systems and change management and security, help IT handle growing demands.

Customers See Value

"W.L. Gore & Associates has succeeded for 50 years by providing quality products that meet customer needs. The same can be said of SAS," said Dr. José Ramírez, Industrial Statistician at W.L. Gore & Associates. "Our associates rely on SAS because SAS delivers, year in and year out. SAS 9.2, with its new analytical and data integration capabilities and improved implementation and management, demonstrates innovation, a hallmark of both SAS and Gore. We look forward to leveraging SAS 9.2 to improve our processes and deliver quality to our customers."

Best known for GORE-TEX fabric and ELIXIR guitar strings, W.L. Gore & Associates manufactures advanced technology products for the electronics, industrial, fabrics and medical markets. With more than $2 billion in annual sales, Gore employs more than 8,000 people in 45 facilities worldwide.

“SAS 9.2 provides the powerful analytics and data management that we've come to expect from SAS,” said James Shields, Marketing Analysis Manager at IDEXX Laboratories Inc. (NASDAQ:IDXX). “The new graphical and visualization technologies added to SAS 9.2 assist my team with effectively explaining the analyses results to senior management and other internal customers. And, the added dashboard capabilities of SAS 9.2 make SAS even easier to use by more people across the organization, fueling demand for greater analysis and fact-based decision-making.”

IDEXX Laboratories is a global leader in pet health, with offerings including in-clinic diagnostic tests and instrumentation, laboratory services, pharmaceuticals, and veterinarian practice management software. IDEXX Laboratories also provides tools for monitoring the health of production animals and diagnostic technology to ensure the safety of drinking water and milk.

Abt Associates Inc., a major global research and consulting firm, uses SAS to support research on a wide range of social, economic, health and business issues, including clinical trials. SAS is used to evaluate Food Stamp programs, detect Medicare fraud, and evaluate nursing home care, making sense of data from every U.S. nursing home contained in a huge Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services database (MDS).

According to Louise Hadden, Lead Programmer/Analyst in Abt Associates Inc.'s Health Policy and Clinical Research division, "SAS 9.2 helps our researchers and consultants create accurate statistical models that analyze the large-scale MDS database. Results show patterns and trends across regions and states, highlighting potential areas for improvement at individual facilities. With SAS 9.2, Abt Associates can make evidence-based recommendations to our clients about appropriate next steps."

"SAS 9.2's ability to visualize data is unbelievable. Its presentation-style graphics help us clearly and quickly show clients what’s going on in their data and, consequently, inform choices regarding programs, areas for improvement and further research.”

"I've personally used SAS for 29 years, starting with punch cards at MIT in 1979,” said Hadden. SAS 9.2 shows how far SAS has come. SAS has always provided the world's best analytics, and SAS 9.2 underscores this strength. With SAS 9.2's visualization and graphics, quicker processing speed and more agile data management and integration, we get accurate and reproducible results and answers faster than ever, thus serving our customers more effectively."

Today’s announcement came at SAS Global Forum, the largest annual SAS users group conference, attended by more than 3,000 business and IT users of SAS software and solutions.

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