Milano, 7 giugno 2006 - SAS, the leader in business intelligence, announced today that Apparel has ranked it as one of the outstanding global software and services vendors for retail and apparel manufacturing industries in the magazine’s inaugural "Software Scorecard" survey. The high marks SAS received came from the votes of executives responsible for IT decisions, with customer satisfaction heavily weighted at 60 percent followed by breadth and scope of apparel solutions. The Scorecard is designed to increase visibility of and knowledge about leading software vendors serving the apparel marketplace. It introduces the first head-to-head comparison of the top software vendors specific to the apparel/retail industry.

The Scorecard considered customer satisfaction through 12 key metrics. SAS placed No. 1 in Innovation and ranked in the top 5 percent for Apparel/Retail Functionality. SAS also ranked in the top 10 percent in Strategic Value, Return on Investment (ROI), Quality of Support and Quality of Service, with 72 software vendors participating in the Scorecard survey.

"The strong ratings for SAS in Apparel’s Software Scorecard survey are no doubt a reflection of the firm’s engaged apparel customer base that are leveraging the company’s technology to achieve their strategic goals," said Kathy DesMarteau, Editor in Chief of Apparel.

"It is very rewarding to have our success validated by our retail customers in Apparel’s Scorecard survey. We are committed to continuing our leadership position in bringing innovative business solutions to the apparel/retail industry through our comprehensive enterprisewide business intelligence (BI) software," said Lori Schafer, Vice President of SAS’ Global Retail Practice. "Our high rating in this Scorecard Survey is evidence of our widespread success around the world in creating customer confidence through the solutions we deliver to retailers every day. We will continue offering retailers and apparel suppliers the out-of-the-box thinking that has distinguished SAS as the leader in business intelligence in Apparel magazine’s Scorecard survey, as well as throughout our company’s 30-year history."

The complete Apparel Scorecard Survey appears online at www.apparelmag.com and in the print edition of Apparel’s May 2006 issue. For more information on SAS and its enterprisewide intelligence solution suite for the retail industry, visit SAS at www.sas.com/retail.

About Apparel
Apparel magazine offers technology and business insight from concept to consumer, providing competitive, actionable information to executives representing the world’s most successful apparel brands, retailers and manufacturers. Its targeted content addresses Retail Intelligence, Supply Chain, Sourcing and Logistics, Concept-to-Spec and Fiber-to-Fabric. An Edgell Communications publication, Apparel also produces the Apparel Executive Forum, Apparel’s Tech Conference, Apparel Sourcing Expo-Asia, numerous Wweb seminars, the Apparel e-Newsletter and apparelmag.com. The award-winning Apparel has been published continuously since 1959.