SAS Institute Inc. Announces Alliance With American Management Systems.

CARY, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 10, 1998--

Teaming to provide customer relationship management solutions...

SAS Institute Inc. today announced an alliance with American Management Systems (AMS), an international business and information technology consulting firm, to provide customer relationship management solutions. As an Alliance Partner, AMS will combine its industry expertise in implementing large-scale business and technology change initiatives with SAS(R) data warehousing, data mining, and decision-support software.

Under the terms of the alliance, SAS Institute will work closely with AMS to provide highly customized data warehouse and decision support solutions for their common and prospective clients. In addition, the AMS Center for Advanced Technologies (AMSCAT) in Fairfax, Va., will become a showcase for demonstrating the value of SAS software for AMS's numerous business initiatives. SAS Institute will also provide AMS consultants with technical and implementation training on SAS software.

Wingate Swain, SAS Institute's director of market development, said, "We look forward to strengthening this alliance with AMS on many fronts. AMSCAT provides an ideal showcase for demonstrating the value of SAS software for AMS's numerous customer management initiatives. For project teams working with client data and delivering actual solutions, the alliance ensures that clients get additional value for their investments."

Initially, the alliance will focus on the two firms' customer relationship management efforts. Of specific interest is the integration of SAS Institute's newly-released data mining product, Enterprise Miner(TM) software, with AMS's Strata(R) Enterprise software. Enterprise Miner is the first software to offer a common environment for its primary users - business analysts, quantitative professionals, and IT - and is the first to address the entire data mining process within one automated solution. Strata Enterprise software was developed to execute and track complex customer management strategies. By integrating these products, organizations will have a seamless environment in which to build, deploy, test, and track the outcome of customer relationship management strategies and will reduce the "time to market" for new strategies while increasing their effectiveness.

According to Steve Mutschler, vice president in charge of AMS's Customer Strategy Consulting practice, "SAS software provides the platform that we need in order to design and quickly implement the technology-based customer management systems demanded by our clients. SAS Institute's preeminent leadership, particularly in the area of data warehousing and decision support, complements AMS's industry expertise in defining and deploying large-scale business and technology change initiatives. Both firms have strong credentials helping companies re-orient their businesses to emphasize customer relationship management."

About AMS

AMS's consumer financial services practice specializes in customer management strategy and technology consulting for large institutions. The firm's interactive Customer Value Management (iCVM) methodology enables banks, retail investment firms and other financial services providers to enhance the value of customer relationships by linking customer management strategies with multi-channel customer contact processes. AMS's iCVM capabilities include business consulting, customer value analysis/predictive modeling and advanced technology integration capabilities, in addition to market-leading enterprise customer decision management and consumer credit management software platforms. AMS's finance industry clients include all of the top 10 US banks, several major Canadian banks, a number of leading brokerage and securities firms, and more than 150 major institutions around the world.

AMS is an international business and information technology consulting firm that provides a full range of services: business re-engineering, change management, systems integration, and systems development and implementation. AMS's business is to partner with clients to achieve breakthrough performance through the intelligent use of information technology. AMS is headquartered in Fairfax, Va., with offices in 55 cities worldwide. AMS has grown for 28 consecutive years by establishing solid, long-standing partnerships with clients through the ability to provide thought leadership and the ability to deliver results. AMS, the 13th largest consulting firm worldwide, had 1997 revenues of $872 million.

AMS can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.amsinc.com

About SAS Institute

Now in its 22nd year, SAS Institute is one of the top ten largest independent software vendors in the world, and is the largest privately held software company. The leading provider of data warehousing and decision-support software, the Institute has won DM Review's 1997 Data Acquisition/Delivery award for Data Warehousing. Other awards include the reader-selected 1996 and 1997 Datamation magazine Data Warehousing Product of the Year award, the 1997 Database Programming & Design Database Dozen award, and Software Magazine's Editor's Choice award for decision-support.

SAS Institute provides an integrated suite of information delivery tools that allow companies to transform the wide variety of data within their organization into information that business users need to make decisions. To make data useful, SAS software collects data from almost every platform and data format; cleans and transforms data into information that users will understand; and stores that information in an open and efficient data warehouse structure. To explore this information, SAS software includes OLAP, query and reporting, EIS, data mining, analysis, data visualization, and application-development interfaces. SAS software is client/server and Web enabled. SAS Institute also delivers business solutions that are complete packages for financial consolidation and reporting, clinical trials analysis, oil and gas analysis, and IT service management. Currently, SAS software and business solutions are being used at 31,000 business, government, and university sites in more than 120 countries.

Please visit SAS Institute's Web site: http://www.sas.com

SAS is a registered trademark of SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA.

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CONTACT: SAS Institute Inc.

Angela Padgett

or Pamela Meek 

919/677-8000

http://www.sas.com/newsroom