SAS maintains double-digit business intelligence growth in key international markets

Leading analyst firm reports strong growth in international BI market for 2004

CARY, N.C. (Dec. 05, 2005) – SAS, the leader in business intelligence, continues its position as a leading business intelligence vendor according to two recent reports* from Gartner, a prominent analyst firm. Based on 2004 new license sales for both regions, Gartner’s ranking shows SAS to be the No 1 BI vendor in terms of revenue in Asia Pacific with 17.5 percent share of revenue and No. 2 in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) with 17.4 percent BI market share. According to Gartner, the top six countries (based on new license revenue) in the Asia Pacific region include Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, China and Hong Kong. These reports follow a similar report Gartner issued on the worldwide BI software market, which confirmed SAS’ position as a leading global BI vendor.**

“We believe these Gartner reports confirm two things: the growing demand for BI solutions and SAS’ worldwide BI leadership,” said Allan Russell, senior vice president responsible for strategy of SAS International. “Customers are realizing how critical it is to move beyond traditional BI tools like query and reporting and to standardize their BI tools on a common platform. As the only vendor that completely integrates data warehousing, analytics and traditional BI applications, SAS is well-equipped to meet the growing need for reliable data and for improved total cost of ownership, while, at the same time, meeting the company’s own double-digit growth targets.”

SAS® Enterprise BI Server, a major component of the SAS®9 Enterprise Intelligence Platform, is an integral factor of SAS’ growth in the BI space. The SAS®9 platform empowers users at all levels of an organization by giving them targeted interfaces to support their individual needs and skills. SAS Enterprise BI Server provides a suite of BI functions including reporting, query and analysis, OLAP, integrated analytics, visualization, and integration with Microsoft Office environments. More information about SAS Enterprise BI Server can be found at http://www.sas.com/technologies/bi/entbiserver/index.html.

* “Market Share: Business Intelligence Software, EMEA, 2004” (Ruggero Contu, Fabrizio Biscotti, Colleen Graham, Nov. 2, 2005) and “Market Share: Business Intelligence Software, Asia/Pacific, 2004” (Jitendra Jethanandani, Colleen Graham, Nov. 4, 2005)

** “Business Intelligence Software Market Grows 12 Percent in 2004” (Colleen Graham, Aug. 15, 2005)

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.

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