Six SAS partners receive awards at annual user group event

Accenture, GeoAnalytics, HP, Qualex, RSM McGladrey and Zencos accept prestigious awards for supporting SAS business intelligence goals

CARY, NC  (April 23, 2007)  —  SAS, the leader in business intelligence, honored six partners at its 32nd annual SAS® Global Forum event (formerly SAS User Group International or SUGI) last week in Orlando, FL. The awards recognize those partners that go above and beyond in providing business intelligence sales, service and support for SAS customers. 
"SAS values the domain expertise, insight and responsiveness our partners provide customers," said Miles Mahoney, Vice President of SAS Global Alliances and Channels. "Acting as extensions of SAS — from pre-sales and implementation to ongoing service and support — our partners make sure organizations recognize all the benefits that SAS can offer. These awards allow us to recognize the great work our partners accomplished in 2006 and thank them for their contribution to SAS' success." . 

PARTNER OF THE YEAR AWARDS
The annual Partner of the Year awards — SAS' highest — recognize partners that excelled in not only helping drive SAS revenues but also in raising SAS' visibility as a business intelligence leader. The recipients of these awards were selected by the SAS Americas Executive Leadership Team. 

In a new category this year, Qualex received SAS' first Value Added Reseller of the Year Award due to its efforts in successfully transitioning its knowledge of SAS software and implementation experience to a successful reseller model. Accenture was awarded Consulting Partner of the Year. Accenture leveraged its SAS capabilities to deliver innovative solutions to its clients across a variety of industries — including telco, health and life sciences, retail, manufacturing, and financial services — which resulted in more than 60 joint customer successes. 

HP received the Technology Partner of the Year award for its ongoing commitment to SAS by providing dedicated sales, marketing and engineering teams in support of joint sales, pre—sales and marketing efforts. As a SAS partner for 23 years, HP has fostered a relationship focused on creating revenue opportunities for both companies that has resulted in more than 10,000 customers worldwide.

Qualex Consulting Services is a premier SAS software solutions services company and a Gold—level member of the SAS Alliance. Qualex has worked closely with SAS for several years as the leading implementation partner in the gaming industry and has taken an active role in the development of the SAS gaming solutions. Qualex brings to the gaming industry experience from a wide array of industries that include financial services, insurance, telecommunications, energy, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, retail, healthcare and government agencies since 1995.

ABOUT SAS
SAS is the leader in business intelligence and analytical software and services. Customers at 43,000 sites use SAS software to improve performance through insight from data, resulting in faster, more accurate business decisions; more profitable relationships with customers and suppliers; compliance with governmental regulations; research breakthroughs; and better products and processes. Only SAS offers leading data integration, storage, analytics and business intelligence applications within a comprehensive enterprise intelligence platform. Since 1976, SAS has been giving customers around the world THE POWER TO KNOW® .