SAS Speeds Delivery of Business Intelligence With Direct Access to SAP BW Software

Business Wire, Nov 19, 2001

Business Editors/High Tech Writers

CARY, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 19, 2001

-- Direct access to metadata and InfoCubes reduces time to

intelligence from SAP data --

SAS Institute, the market leader in business intelligence and data warehousing and a mySAP.com software partner, today announced the production release of its SAS/ACCESS(R) interface to SAP Business Information Warehouse (SAP BW)(TM) software.

Using the SAS(R) organizations can quickly extract SAP BW data for fast answers to questions about their customers, suppliers and internal organization. The SAS interface eliminates the need to perform complicated searches through the underlying SAP data structure. The interface also makes it easy to combine data from SAP BW with other valuable sources of information to gain a complete picture of customer, supplier or organizational activity.

"A complete and up-to-date picture of your organization, customers and supplier behavior is essential to manage today's large businesses," said Frank Nauta, SAS worldwide product manager of data warehousing. "SAS/ACCESS interface to SAP BW ensures that this valuable source of data can be readily accessed, combined with data from other sources, and turned into customer intelligence that fuels profitable marketing and sales activities.

"SAS is the only business intelligence or analytics vendor to offer direct access to SAP BW," added Nauta. "Direct access offers faster access over the OLE/DB for OLAP access interface supported by other vendors for accessing large volumes of data. This is particularly important in enterprise-scale applications such as marketing campaign development and execution where high performance against large customer databases is vital. SAS is also the only vendor to provide direct access to SAP BW from analytical applications running on UNIX and Microsoft Windows platforms."

SAS can access more corporate data sources than any other business intelligence or analytics vendor, ensuring accurate answers to questions that drive the business such as, "Which of my customers are most profitable?" or "How can I reduce my procurement spend?"

SAS/ACCESS interface to SAP BW provides direct access to the SAP metadata that describes the content of SAP InfoCubes. Other business intelligence applications must go through the lengthier and less flexible route of accessing static QueryCubes predefined through SAP-supplied Excel-based tools. The SAS interface also supports standard SAP logon authorization ensuring that business analysts may automatically only access data for which they have authorization. Other tools that access the SAP BW database bypass this security model.

SAS recently announced certification from SAP Portals for SAS' drag-and-drop Windows interface, Enterprise Guide(R). That certification strengthened a relationship between the two companies that began when SAS joined SAP AG's Complementary Software Partner Program.

About SAP

SAP is the world's leading provider of e-business software solutions. Through the mySAP.com(R) e-business platform, businesses are improving relationships with customers and partners, streamlining operations, and achieving significant supply chain efficiencies. More than 13,000 companies in over 100 countries run more than 30,000 installations of SAP(R) software. The company is listed on the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE under the symbol "SAP." (information at www.sap.com)

About SAS

SAS provides software and services that enable customers to transform data from all areas of their business into intelligence. SAS solutions help organizations make better, more informed decisions and maximize customer, supplier, and organizational relationships. Solutions from SAS, the world's largest privately held software company, are used at more than 37,000 business, government and university sites around the world. Customers include 98 of the top 100 companies on the Fortune 500 and 90 percent of Fortune 500 overall. For 25 years, SAS has been giving our customers The Power to Know(TM). For more information, visit http://www.sas.com .

SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries.(R)indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies.