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

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

Milano, (5 dicembre 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 EMEA and Asia Pacific. “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.

* “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)