Citing time and money savings as key benefits of data warehousing; Surveyed SAS Institute Customers Prefer End-To-End, Platform-Independent Solutions.

CARY, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 16, 1996--SAS Institute Inc. today announced the results of a survey that measured its customers' data warehousing preferences and actual use of their data warehouses. Results of the survey, conducted during the 21st annual SAS Users Group International (SUGI) conference in Chicago, confirm that users need robust, end-to-end data warehousing solutions that let them manage their data, organize it, explore it and derive meaningful reports from it - quickly and inexpensively.

"Enterprises have been consistently calling out for an integrated data warehousing solution, from one or more suppliers, to enhance their organizations' decision making," said Robert Moran, director of decision support research at the Aberdeen Group. "The criteria most commonly cited as important include data warehousing functions to construct, import, organize and exploit data."

The SAS(r) System, SAS Institute's flagship suite of software for business decision making, provides a front-end to back-end data warehousing solution, or it can be integrated with other vendors' tools to create a complete data warehouse. "This gives customers the flexibility to choose how they set up their data warehouse," said Randy Betancourt, SAS Institute's program manager for data warehousing. "They can use the SAS System for Data Warehousing to handle all three stages of data warehousing - managing, organizing and exploiting the data. Or they can seamlessly integrate those SAS software capabilities with other vendors'. However they choose to go, our customers are realizing significant benefits."

Highlights of the survey

Business and IT customers surveyed employ many aspects of the SAS System's end-to-end data warehousing architecture to enable better decision making. More than 90 percent of customers surveyed are using SAS software's data warehousing capabilities to manage data within their data warehouses. Twenty percent use SAS software to organize the data within the data management architecture, and about 80 percent use SAS software to exploit the data.

Customers surveyed not only confirmed these data warehousing uses, they also indicated that they're using the SAS System on a variety of platforms. Nearly half of those surveyed are using the SAS System for Data Warehousing in a client/server environment. The most often-cited platform was the PC (Windows, Windows NT, and OS/2) with 73 percent, followed by mainframe with 59 percent; UNIX (primarily Hewlett-Packard, Sun, and IBM) with 39 percent; Digital (OpenVMS for VAX or Alpha) with 15 percent; and Macintosh with 3 percent.

In an open-ended question on the survey that asked SAS Institute customers to cite the ways SAS software benefits their organizations:

- 30 percent noted the software's functionality and breadth.

- 17 percent listed the product's reliability and SAS Institute's

reputation for reliable products.

- 12 percent cited cost and/or productivity savings for their

organization.

- 12 percent mentioned the software's ease of use.

- 10 percent listed the software's ability to easily and

effectively integrate with other products.

- 4 percent cited other benefits, including improving sales,

providing them a competitive advantage and other reasons.

The SAS System is being used for quality control, inventory management, and data integration at the Alabama-based Monsanto Chemical Co. "The use of SAS software has resulted in major savings due to reduced customer problems," said Jerry Oglesby, a manufacturing technologist and statistician at Monsanto.

"SAS/EIS(r) software saves money when measured against other EIS'," said David Harris, research systems director at the American Cancer Society in Atlanta. "It saves lives by moving cancer research forward."

The following is a sample of comments from respondents who requested anonymity because their SAS applications directly relate to their competitiveness. (Note: to arrange interviews with SAS Institute data warehousing customers willing to be interviewed about their applications, please call any of the editorial contacts listed on this news release.)

"My clients have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in software and development time." - Technology Consultant

"We're saving millions of dollars." - Steel Manufacturer

"We're saving about $500,000 a year in recovered expenditures, plus whatever we gain by improving our estimating and bidding processes." - Banker

"We have saved millions of dollars because of current information we have access to. One software is meeting all of our business needs." - Medical Researcher

"Hundreds of thousands of dollars are being saved in resource management and collecting unpaid charges." - Medical Center Administrator

About the survey and SAS Institute

SAS Institute surveyed 258 customers at SUGI, a nonprofit organization of users of SAS Institute's software products, including the SAS System. A quarter of those surveyed are manager level or above.

Now in its 20th anniversary year, SAS Institute is among the world's 10 largest independent software companies. SAS Institute's flagship product, the SAS System, is an integrated suite of information delivery software for business decision making.

The SAS System addresses the unique needs of business users and IT departments in their support of the businesses. The SAS System includes capabilities and tools for data warehousing including managing, organizing and exploiting the warehouse; business intelligence including EIS, online analytical processing, application development and decision support; applied analysis including technical data analysis, data mining and neural networking; and business solutions for applications such as financial consolidation and reporting, clinical trials analysis, and IT service management. Currently, more than 29,400 businesses, government agencies and universities worldwide are using SAS software products.

SAS is a registered trademark of SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA All other tradenames referenced are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

CONTACT: SAS Institute Inc., Cary

Beverly Brown or Les Hamashima, 919/677-8000

or

The Weber Group

Patty Williams or Kathy Keating, 617/661-7900