Australia and New Zealand perform strongly

Sydney, Australia  (Feb 21, 2007) Strong demand for industry-specific and packaged solutions in 2006 fueled the 30th straight year of revenue growth for SAS, the leader in business intelligence. Total revenue in 2006 was US$1.9 billion, up 12 per cent over US$1.7 billion in 2005.

Gordon Clubb, Managing Director for SAS Australia and New Zealand noted that global new software licence revenues increased 20 per cent – nearly double the growth rate expected in the market for 2007.

Significant contracts signed in 2006 included those with – Australian Federal Police, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Housing New Zealand Corporation, Department of Health & Aging, Department of Veterans’ Affairs, NSW Health, Advertising Works Ogilvy, Statistics New Zealand, Telecom New Zealand, MBF, Queensland Department of Employment & Training, Vodafone Australia and Vodafone New Zealand.

“This year’s strong financial results validate the new course we set for the Company several years ago when we began investing heavily in business and industry-focused applications built on an enterprise intelligence platform,” said SAS CEO Jim Goodnight. “We had a good year. Industry and packaged business solutions were up 49 percent over 2005. One of our core strengths, powerful predictive analytics, continued to represent a significant stream of revenue at 19 percent growth. Sales of business intelligence and data integration/warehousing were each up by nearly 50 percent, demonstrating the importance of an integrated intelligence portfolio.”

OUTLOOK FOR 2007
“Based on the success of our packaged analytic applications and comprehensive enterprise intelligence platform, we expect to be a $2 billion company in 2007,” Goodnight said. “Additionally, we have set the stage for increased sales by implementing our first-ever partner channel.”

Launched in 2006, a burgeoning reseller network will increase SAS’ routes to the market. “Combining market-leading technology and industry solutions with our strategic partners’ domain knowledge will continue to be top priority this year,” Goodnight said. ”Global system integrators and members of the SAS Alliance will accelerate our growth.”

Analyst firm Gartner recently positioned SAS in the Leaders Quadrant in its “Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms, 1Q07” report.^1.

About the Magic Quadrant
The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted Jan. 26, 2007, by Gartner Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner's analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the "Leaders" quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

1 Gartner Research, “Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms, 1Q07,” by K. Schlegel, B. Hostmann and A. Bitterer. Jan. 26, 2007.

ABOUT SAS
SAS is the leader in business intelligence software and services. Customers at 40,000 sites use SAS software to improve performance through insight into vast amounts of data, resulting in faster, more accurate business decisions; more profitable relationships with customers and suppliers; compliance with governmental regulations; research breakthroughs; and better products. Only SAS offers leading data integration, intelligence storage, advanced analytics and business intelligence applications within a comprehensive enterprise intelligence platform. Since 1976, SAS has been giving customers around the world THE POWER TO KNOW®.

SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries. ® indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies.© 2007