Last month, SAS professionals joined us for SAS Forum UK. Held in Birmingham on November 3 - 4, this event attracted around 400 SAS users from across all industries. The first day was dedicated to the newly introduced Special Interest Groups (SIGs), which allowed customers to focus on chosen areas of interest and discuss challenges with their peers. Read highlights from the SIGs and the main conference, which featured presentations from SAS customers on how they are using SAS to make technical and business breakthroughs.

In this issue, you can also read how UCAS are using SAS Text Miner to make the right choices of candidates for particular courses. You can explore the SAS storage capabilities of the SAS^®9 Intelligence Platform in our main Technology & Solutions feature and find out how SAS Customer Services can help you leverage your SAS investment through courses and services in 2005.

Scottish Executive Leads the Way in Data Integration with SAS
Scottish Executive, the devolved government for Scotland, is working with SAS to pioneer compliance with the Office of National Statistics' data integration standards. The deal, worth close to one million pounds over three years, will see Scottish Executive upgrade to SAS' revolutionary business intelligence platform, SAS^®9, to help Scottish Executive better organise, access and understand its data.

SAS Announces Continued Strong Global Growth for Business Intelligence
SAS has announced continued financial and customer success through the third quarter of 2004, with year-to-date revenue growth up 12 percent over 2003. Driving new business for SAS was the software company's string of key solution launches that leverage the breakthrough capabilities of the SAS^®9 Intelligence Platform, unveiled in the first quarter of 2004.

SAS Forum UK 2004: Making the Breakthrough
SAS Forum UK 2004 was not only the biggest SAS customer event in the UK to date; it also included some important innovations such as a full day of Special Interest Groups and the opportunity to take the SAS Certification exam for free.

UCAS Finds Text Mining Fair Enough
Universities expend huge amounts of time and resources trying to make fair and accurate assessments of which candidates are most deserving of places in their undergraduate courses. Part of the process is to read through and analyse vast amounts of text. Christine Vera-Cruz, a SAS Student Ambassador, showed how SAS Text Miner can help universities make the right choices. TECHNOLOGY & SOLUTIONS

Managing, Storing and Utilising Data for Business and Analytical Intelligence
"As far as the principle of the matter is concerned, the argument between specialised and general-purpose storage is the same one that says that a surgeon specialising in neurology is better equipped to operate on your brain than a general practitioner." Philip Howard, Bloor Research.
SAS users have long understood that in business intelligence environments it makes sense to adopt different database approaches, according to the business issues being solved. This white paper from Bloor Research examines this topic, both in general terms and with respect to the SAS storage capabilities of the SAS^®9 Intelligence Platform.

SAS Achieves Leadership Status in META Group's Evaluation of Data Mining Tools
SAS has announced that it has been ranked as a market leader in META Group's METAspectrumSM report for data mining tools. SAS was again placed in the leader segment of the METAspectrum analysis and was specifically recognised for its product, SAS Enterprise Miner.

SAS Customer Services in 2005 - What's Available?
The 2005 'SAS Customer Services: Education and Support' brochure contains information on all new and updated courses and offerings, such as 'Introduction to SAS^®9: for Business Analysts' and 'Using SAS® ETL Studio'; together with the standard schedule of favourites including SAS^® System Essentials, SAS^® Programming and SAS^® Macro Language. Visit the web site today for full course overviews or to register your details for a free 2005 brochure.

In SAS^®9, Saying "less" on the Command Line Provides Even "more"
(Written by Peter Crawford, Crawford Software Consultancy Limited)
Find out how SAS^®9 uses multiple configuration files to make the most of running SAS in a mixed or multi-use environment.

How Do I Get a Pound (£) Symbol in my SAS Output Within SAS^® 8 and SAS^®9?
Although SAS does not have a standard pound format, there are a number of different ways to get the pound (£) symbol in your SAS output depending on the version of SAS you are running.

Share Your Thoughts & Receive a SAS Fleece!
Are there areas that you would like to see covered in Hints & Tips or do you have a hint & tip of your own that you would like to share with other readers? Please contact us with your ideas and if we publish your hint & tip, we will send you a SAS fleece! EVENTS

Focus on SAS^® Enterprise Miner - On-Demand Web Seminar
SAS Enterprise Miner greatly simplifies and streamlines the process of data mining, combining a comprehensive approach within a single packaged solution. Easy-to-use front-ends allow non programmers to access data, perform modelling and publish results. Join us for a thought-provoking Web seminar that will show how SAS Enterprise Miner can help you.

More SAS UK Events DID YOU KNOW?

SAS Rucksacks Receive Analyst Approval
In a recent competitive evaluation, SAS received top marks for rucksack quality and desirability. Is there a message that can be taken from the quality of rucksacks with respect to a company's software? It appears that unlike SAS, most vendor rucksacks do not stand up to the scrutiny of the 'schoolboy test'. Read the full article from Bloor Research on IT-Director.com.