SAS Extends Commitment to Customers to Offer Open, Standards-Based Technology; Alliance With Sun Microsystems Yields Technology Advances, Lower TCO and Higher ROI

Business Wire, Oct 24, 2002

Business Editors, High Tech Writers

LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 24, 2002

(SAS Executive Conference) SAS, the leader in business intelligence, announced today its deepening solidarity with long-term global alliance partner Sun Microsystems, Inc., and continued commitment to provide customer solutions aligned with open, standards-based technology.

SAS' adoption of Java-based technology, and support for the Sun(TM) Open Net Environment (Sun(TM) ONE), underscore SAS' momentum in providing a new generation of business intelligence software and services that create true enterprise intelligence based on open standards.

Earlier this year, SAS and Sun announced compatibility between SAS' interactive development environment product AppDev Studio(TM) and the Java(TM) 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition, (J2EE(TM)). SAS continues to develop and deliver solutions that use the power of Java technology and support the functionality of Sun's Open Net Environment. SAS and Sun are working together to optimize performance, integration, and deployment of SAS solutions on Sun.

"A leader in open network computing solutions, Sun and our partners have gained market share by delivering bottom-line value, security, choice and innovation based on open, standards-based technology," said Scott McNealy, Chairman, President and CEO of Sun Microsystems. "Sun and SAS are taking the risk out of IT investments by integrating and testing business solutions that help our respective customers leverage their most important asset: information."

"In today's critical business situations, organizations don't have the luxury of time or proprietary dead ends. Open standards adoption is key to solving immediate business requirements in real-time Web environments," said Jim Goodnight, president and CEO at SAS. "SAS and Sun are committed to delivering the technology required to make intelligent decisions at a moment's notice."

Within the Java technology and Sun ONE framework, developers can more easily create and deploy Java applications that deliver The Power to Know(R) to joint customers. Continuing the investment that both companies have made in "write once, run anywhere" architecture, the next release of SAS, Version 9, will extend existing SAS Version 8 capabilities with the Java infrastructure.

SAS and Sun will demonstrate SAS Business Intelligence delivered through the Sun(TM) ONE Web Server and Sun(TM) ONE Identity Server at SAS' Executive Conference in Las Vegas, October 24, 2002. The demonstration will show a possible use of SAS and SunONE Identity Server in a Pharmaceutical application. Sun's CEO, Scott McNealy, delivered the opening keynote Wednesday evening at the Las Vegas Four Seasons Hotel.

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 39,000 sites - including 98 of the top 100 businesses on the Fortune 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 more than 25 years, SAS has been giving customers around the world The Power to Know(R). Visit us at 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. Copyright(c) 2002 SAS Institute Inc. Cary, NC, USA. All rights reserved.

Sun, the Sun logo, Sun Microsystems, Sun ONE, Sun Open Net Environment, Java, and J2EE, are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and in other countries.