SAS celebrates 30th anniversary

Business Intelligence offerings drive continuous growth

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (March 27, 2006) – As SAS celebrates its 30th anniversary, the leader in business intelligence – the hottest sector in the software market today – anticipates even bigger things.

SAS has grown from seven employees selling one software program in 1976 to more than 10,000 people today in 424 offices worldwide. SAS solutions are used at more than 40,000 sites, including 96 of the top 100 companies on the FORTUNE Global 500®.

SAS has been on the forefront of information technology for 30 years, maintaining an unbroken string of 29 years of growth and profitability. Revenues – some $138,000 in 1976 – topped $1.68 billion in 2005. And there’s every indication that SAS’ growth will continue.

Surging interest in business intelligence (BI) was evidenced by record numbers (more than 4,000) of attendees from around the world at this year’s SAS Users Group International (SUGI) conference in San Francisco.

BI continues as a business priority and technology trend. A Gartner press release1 announcing results of their recent survey of “1,400 CIOs in more than 30 countries, representing more than U.S. $90 billion in IT spending” found that the leading technology priority is no longer security. It’s BI. SAS BI offerings – going beyond the traditional view of BI as merely reporting – are built on a stable, scalable and integrated platform of technologies that include data integration, intelligence storage, analytics and reporting.

“BI is a growth market – the advent of BI for the masses and the nearly saturated ERP market, as well as increasing compliance regulation, point to a high demand for BI in the years to come. SAS is perfectly positioned to meet that demand,” said Jim Davis, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at SAS. “BI applications deliver quick, measurable return on investment — particularly when combined with predictive analytics and data integration.”

In addition, SAS’ new global Business Intelligence Competency Centre program will help customers maximize their BI investments by building cohesive strategies that address technology as well as people, processes and organizational culture. And a host of updated industry-specific SAS solutions will be rolled out during 2006.

Today, SAS is introducing further enhancements to its flagship BI solution, SAS Enterprise BI Server, including more capabilities for report management and distribution and further spatial analysis capabilities through integration with ESRI. The additions allow business users throughout the organization to more easily access and leverage the intelligence in their growing data stores.

“While our company has grown, our mission of adding value to our customers and being central to their success through our software remain the same,” said Dr. Jim Goodnight, CEO and founder of SAS.

1 Gartner Research Press Release: “Gartner Survey of 1,400 CIOs Shows Transformation of IT Organisation is Accelerating” ( http://www.gartner.com/press_releases/asset_143678_11.html), January 23, 2006.

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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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