SAS drives Business Intelligence through databases

SAS unveils plans to provide deeper integration of SAS Analytics and Solutions within database engines

Dublin, Ireland, 09. Oct. 2007 -  SAS, the leader in business intelligence and analytical software and services, has unveiled plans to directly integrate SAS analytics, data integration capabilities and solutions into leading relational database management systems (RDBMS). This initiative will deliver improved accuracy, reduced data movement and more streamlined analytic processes to businesses with enterprise data warehouses to help speed the delivery of business intelligence throughout all levels of the organisation. Decision makers with faster access to analytical results will gain more insights into their businesses and make more agile and accurate decisions.

Businesses today are challenged by the need to harness the value of increasing amounts of data to make fast and accurate decisions. SAS will address these challenges by enabling appropriate analytics, data integration and business intelligence functionality to operate within database engines. It will also integrate these applications seamlessly with business intelligence services and analytic solutions across the enterprise. The goal of this initiative is to provide customers with increased flexibility and a cost-effective approach to further leverage their enterprises’ data warehousing investments with SAS In-Database Processing, which will make it easier for them to focus on business opportunities that will help them succeed.

"By leveraging the processing power of databases and running analytics where the data resides, SAS is giving businesses another way to be more efficient and effective by helping them balance and fully utilise their technology resources," said Michael Kearney, Country Manager, SAS. "Accelerating the development and execution of analytics within a relational database will give customers a flexible, powerful means for implementing predictive analytics and information analysis in one location."

"As databases mature to become data appliances for distributed computations, the time has come to extend the power of SAS Analytics and data transformations inside the database engine," said Michael Kearney, Country Manager, SAS. "As more customers leverage data and analytics as corporate assets, they are asking for our help in managing the analytical life cycle from discovery to execution. Blending the best of SAS with the core strengths of databases makes businesses more efficient and responsive to changing market environments."

For example, in efforts to address compliance issues, banks are responsible for identifying suspicious activity, maintaining financial integrity and reducing operating costs, as well as for detecting and reporting criminal financial activities anywhere in the organisation. Now, with the predictive models of SAS integrated within a relational database, banks can identify and address suspect patterns or anomalies quickly, while also speeding up the process of refining detection measures and logic to more accurately report exceptions throughout the enterprise. In addition, SAS In-Database Processing will give retail companies another way to analyse their data to understand and anticipate customer behaviour, meet customer needs, build more profitable customer relationships and gain a holistic view of a customer’s lifetime value.

Professor Tom Davenport, co-author of Competing on Analytics, commented, "Firms that compete on analytics realise that collecting and storing large amounts of information isn’t enough. By building competitive strategies around data driven insights, they can generate impressive business results. Integrating analytics at the point of transaction and data transformation gives businesses with enterprise data warehouses quicker access to the predictive results they need to compete effectively in the market."

This global initiative will occur in a phased rollout involving technical integration milestones with leading RDBMS platforms. More information can be found here: http://www.sas.com/technologies/architecture/in-databaseprocessing/index.html .

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FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:

Siobhan Molloy/Louise Cassidy, Weber Shandwick

Tel: 01 676 0168

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