Dublin, Ireland, 09 October 2006

Two Senior Sales Staff Appointed to Public Sector and Financial Services

SAS, the leader in business intelligence, today announced the appointment of Michael Kearney as Country Manager of its Irish operation. SAS also announced two new sales directors for its senior management team. John Farrelly and Paul Power are joining SAS Ireland as Client Directors for the Public Sector and Financial Services sales teams.

Mr. Kearney previously held a number of senior positions in Micro Focus, SAP Ireland and KPMG Consulting. He joins SAS Ireland from Micro Focus, where he was a member of its Board and where his career path included Worldwide Sales Operations, Director of Marketing EMEA and Director of Investor Relations. He was a key principal on the management team to successfully bring Micro Focus to the London Stock Exchange. Prior to Micro Focus, Michael was General Manager of SAP in Ireland, where he witnessed successful growth in the company with revenues increasing by over 300% during his tenure. He has a degree in Engineering and a PhD from Trinity College Dublin.

According to John Dalton, Managing Director at SAS UK & Ireland, the Irish market offers exceptional growth potential as companies and organizations here see the major benefits and competitive advantages that business intelligence (BI) can give them.

"Our new management team with Michael at its helm will enable SAS Ireland to maximise opportunities for growth. BI is already on many CIOs' radar as an area for investment and it is now viewed as a 'must have' in Ireland's intensively competitive market place. Michael's expertise with leading major technology players will be a tremendous asset to our strategies in Ireland. The appointment of John and Paul as Client Directors adds to this wealth of business acumen, and I believe their experience will enhance our service to customers as well as help increase our footprint in these exciting markets."

According to SAS Ireland, the priorities within the IT landscape are changing. As the ERP layer saturates and so becomes a commodity technology companies looking for a competitive advantage are increasingly "competing on analytics". In addition the ever increasing compliance regulations will require companies to obtain a deep and fundamental understanding of their business processes and data. These circumstances point to a high and increasing demand for BI in the years to come. SAS is perfectly positioned to meet that demand. As Country Manager, Mr Kearney's responsibilities will include securing and growing SAS' position as the leading provider within this emerging BI market in Ireland.

John Farrelly is Client Director for Public Sector where he is responsible for existing clients and for developing new opportunities in key growth areas within the sector. Prior to joining SAS, John held prominent sales positions at BT Ireland, NaviSite Europe, Computer Associates and ICL.

Paul Power is Client Director for Financial Services and is responsible for managing the extensive customer base in Ireland, as well as focusing on key growth within the sector. Before joining SAS, Paul was Senior Account Manager in Oracle for 8 years and prior to that he was Commercial Director for Italy for Goodman International. Paul holds a B.Sc in Management from Trinity College Dublin.

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 organisations 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 our website at www.sas.com/ireland.

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