Press Releases June 10, 2004

SAS showcases partner successes, offers closer ties with technology

Customer Solutions and Alliances Division strengthens relationships

MONTREAL (May 10, 2004) — Today, at the SAS Users Group International (SUGI) conference in Montreal, the Customer Solutions and Alliances Division (CSA) of SAS, the leader in business intelligence solutions, presented partner awards to acknowledge the accomplishments of SAS’ North and South American Alliance partners.

The CSA Division is chartered with the successful sale and delivery of SAS solutions. “SAS is an organization dedicated to its customers and one that understands the value partners bring to the delivery of SAS solutions,” said Don McDougall, vice president of the CSA Division at SAS. “We recognize that customers need comprehensive enterprise solutions, which encompass hardware, software, services and knowledge.” SAS platform partners ensure that the customer has the best IT environment suited for their organizational needs; services offered by SAS partners complement, extend and integrate with SAS’ own; and the knowledge of specific industries available from SAS partners adds the domain expertise joint customers require. “Alliance partners are fundamental to the growth and success of SAS. 2004 is opening numerous doors of opportunity for SAS and the relationships cultivated by the CSA Division are key to the fulfillment of those opportunities.”

SAS recognizes the rewards and benefits obtained by expanding the SAS knowledge base and coupling SAS’ service, expertise and complementary product offerings with partner strengths. “HP has worked with SAS for more than 20 years, ensuring that our customers have constant access to the best technology offered,” said Bruno Castejon, director of business application solutions, Enterprise Storage and Servers, HP. “SAS 9.1 qualification and certification on HP Integrity servers on Itanium is the most recent example of our commitment to address the most demanding business intelligence and process workloads. HP and SAS are empowering enterprises to easily respond to changing business intelligence and process requirements by providing a complete and tested selection of hardware, software, and services with a demonstrated ability to work well together.”

Also at SUGI, the CSA Division launched the SAS®9 Alliance Adventure. Through the SAS®9 Alliance Adventure, SAS offers its partners timely information and training on SAS®9 technology, thus demonstrating SAS’ full commitment to these valued allies. The Adventure will feature monthly activities and communications to provide partners with the latest technology information and will have special awards and events at major SAS venues throughout 2004 and into 2005.

The CSA Division presented the Longstanding SUGI Sponsor awards to HP and IBM for most consecutive years as SUGI Sponsors. SAS also recognized some of its smaller North and South American partners at the Gold and Silver level with awards for:
Most revenue leveraged by a Gold/Silver partner: Zencos Consulting, LLC
Most SAS training completed: Qualex Consulting Services, Inc.
Best new partner: Ermas Consulting
Best Internal Marketing to SAS: ThotWave Technologies, LLC
Largest number SAS certified employees: Venturi Technology Partners

“Our partnership with SAS helps solidify our offerings and technologies offered to our customers — who are the ultimate winners,” said Greg Nelson president and CEO at ThotWave Technologies LLC. “We have had a relationship with the SAS Alliance for almost two decades with a seasoned staff of software engineering professionals, designers and program managers. Through that time we have consistently witnessed SAS’ commitment to a strong partnership and we are delighted to be such a respected part of the SAS ecosystem.”

“We have an excellent working relationship with SAS through the SAS Alliance program. The information, support and training SAS offers its partners provide exceptional value to our organization. The SAS Alliance is an ideal compliment to the strength of technology SAS provides to its customers.” said Clive Pearson, president of Qualex Consulting Services, Inc. “We work with SAS on a wide variety of projects representing nearly every industry. Having such a close partnership with SAS gives our consultants an extra edge to assure our customers’ success.”

The announcement came at the 29th annual SUGI conference. More than 3,000 SAS users from around the world attended this year’s SUGI in Montreal.

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 organizations 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® .