SAS, the leader in business intelligence, announced on 11 April that it is shipping a newly enhanced version of the SAS Enterprise BI Server, a major component of the SAS9 Intelligence Platform, to users worldwide.

SAS provides the industry's most comprehensive offering, complete with easy point-and-click reports, while at the same time delivering more breadth and depth than conventional BI vendors such as Business Objects and Cognos. SAS creates a higher level of business intelligence by making fast and simple access to information available to a wide range of enterprise users.

SAS Enterprise BI Server delivers reports on time, on demand and on target, reducing the time spent looking for answers and making more time available for driving decisions and results. Since SAS Enterprise BI Server delivers critical information in intuitive ways, users can take those insights to make better decisions faster.

No other BI provider delivers OLAP storage and mapping capabilities integrated with a BI tool offering. In this enhancement, SAS created a more sophisticated level of analytics-driven business intelligence with easy and fast access to data for users everywhere in the enterprise.

"SAS brings BI to the masses with simplified user interfaces, so now everyone at every level of an organisation can use this information to solve challenges quickly and easily," said Dr Jim Goodnight, CEO of SAS.

"In addition, our BI offering is built to support IT's need to manage and maintain data and applications efficiently."

SAS announced additional developments related to the SAS Enterprise BI Server:

• The SAS Enterprise BI Server now includes SAS OLAP Server and new OLAP clients at no extra cost. With these new additions, SAS becomes the first and only BI provider to deliver OLAP storage packaged with a BI tool offering. By including the OLAP server and storage, users can create cubes and view multidimensional data within the end-user report environment.
• SAS and ESRI Corp have integrated the SAS Enterprise BI Server with ESRI's ArcGIS server, delivering BI tools integrated with geographic visualisation.
• SAS is offering an integrated version of Platform Computing's JobScheduler for use with SAS Enterprise BI Server. This enterprise job scheduler automates the execution of the entire project flow, from data integration through reporting and analytics.

The enhanced SAS Enterprise BI Server delivers an integrated and comprehensive suite of BI capabilities – including reporting, query and analysis, OLAP, integrated analytics, visualisation and Microsoft Office integration – all using consistent metadata across the suite. Using targeted BI interfaces that support individual needs, the SAS Enterprise BI Server empowers all information producers and consumers.

"The SAS Enterprise BI Server is SAS's foray into mainstream business intelligence. I was impressed by both its power and ease of use," said Cindi Howson, president of ASK, a BI consultancy.

"SAS has done well to analyse the needs of different user types and focus on the distinct needs of casual users and business analysts.

"All too often, users spend too much time trying to access data in different places and formats," Howson continued.

"Of the major BI vendors, SAS was the first Web-based tool to allow users to create a dashboard style report that can seamlessly pull data from multiple data sources, whether relational, OLAP or stored processes. Multiple data sources can also be defined at the metadata or Information Map level, providing re-usability and control when these multiple data sources need to be accessed on a recurring basis."

Industry welcomes SAS BI integration, ease-of-use

A recent survey by global technology consulting firm Accenture highlights growing discontent among senior US executives with their business intelligence initiatives.

• More than 90% of the 150 senior executives surveyed across Fortune 1000 firms believe they need to significantly strengthen their analytic and BI capabilities to drive business growth in the coming year. SAS customers are doing just that.

Many industry thought leaders and SAS customers confirm that SAS's presence in the business intelligence software industry is strong. Customers have responded favourably to the business benefits that come from integrating analytics and data management with conventional BI tools.

These business benefits include: users' timely access to information; cost containment and operational efficiencies; self-service reporting; confidence in the data; regulatory compliance; and IT standardisation. For IT, these benefits include: easy implementation, administration and deployment, reducing time and expense of IT resources; complete 24/7 support at no additional cost; and licensing to unlimited report authors and consumers.

Beyond BI
SAS differentiates itself from other conventional BI vendors in the industry with unmatched technology and expertise in advanced analytics, data management and tailored solutions for specific industries such as banking or life sciences. SAS takes enterprises Beyond BITM by integrating analytics that not only provide limited insight and hindsight in the form of historical reports, but predictive analytics that help predict outcomes and allow clearer foresight. With these capabilities, SAS offers users at any level immediate access to cleansed and reliable data, through targeted user interfaces that match the skill level of the individual user.