SAS wins Frost & Sullivan ‘BI Vendor of the Year Award 2005’ for the second year running

Sydney (11 July 2005) – SAS Asia Pacific has been conferred with the "Business Intelligence Vendor 2005 Award" by Frost & Sullivan for its outstanding performance in the Information and Communication Technologies industry.

This award recognizes SAS as the market leader in Business Intelligence (BI) market in Asia-Pacific.

SAS was selected after a stringent evaluation by an independent panel of judges brought together by Frost & Sullivan. The award was based on a set of specific measurement parameters which included revenue, growth, market share & market share growth, as well as leadership in product and service innovation for base year 2004.

Commenting on the award, Monica Deveshwar, Frost and Sullivan Industry Manager for Software & Services in Asia Pacific said: "2004 was an outstanding year for SAS Asia-Pacific. Through a well defined market strategy, SAS has gained market dominance in total revenues as well as new BI customer sites. Its remarkable performance is the result of a very strong customer driven product innovation. Frost & Sullivan believes that product strength, strong customer base and its unique approach to customers, is likely to help SAS to maintain its market leadership in the intensely competitive Asia Pacific BI market.”

Phillip Beniac, Vice-President of SAS Asia Pacific, says: "We will continue to enhance our dominant market leadership and contribute significantly in helping our customers achieve their business goals, by demonstrating value based on their industry-specific needs," he added.

"The award is an excellent illustration of our success and leading market position, and a validation of the tangible benefits we bring to organizations in the Asia-Pacific region. For the second year in a row, having won the award last year as well, SAS has been able to continue its growth in new business and expand its influence.”

To exemplify this Beniac added that SAS Asia Pacific has had an outstanding 2005 half year result, with a year to date growth in new software sales of 29%. This includes amongst more than 80 new contracts, significant companies such as  St George Bank Ltd;  Suncorp Metway Ltd; Energy Australia; New Zealand Ministry of Justice;  ICICI Bank Ltd; Citibank N A; JCB Co., Ltd; Maxis Mobile Sdn Bhd; Hana Bank; Samsung Life Assurance; Lotte.com Inc; LG CardCo.Ltd and others.

SAS has grown considerably in the Asia Pacific region in the last two decades, both in terms of revenue and customer base. It achieved 20 percent revenue growth in 2004 and increased its penetration into the banking and financial, telecommunications and public sector significantly in this region.

With over 6,000 customers and more than 1000 employees across 14 countries, SAS has recently launched its SAS 9 enterprise intelligence platform as well as enhanced solutions during 2004, based on this single, scalable business intelligence platform.

About SAS

SAS is the market leader in providing a new generation of business intelligence software and services that create true enterprise intelligence. SAS solutions are used at more than 40,000 sites -- including 96 of the top 100 companies on the FORTUNE Global 500® -- to develop more profitable relationships with customers and suppliers; to enable better, more accurate and informed decisions; and to drive organizations forward. SAS is the only vendor that completely integrates leading data warehousing, analytics and traditional BI applications to create intelligence from massive amounts of data. For nearly three decades, SAS has been giving customers around the world The Power to Know®. Visit us at www.sas.com.

ABOUT FROST & SULLIVAN

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