SAS Grid Computing Expert Named to Global Grid Forum Advisory Council

Business Wire, Feb 7, 2006

CARY, N.C. -- SAS, the leader in business intelligence, announced today that one of its grid computing experts, Cheryl Doninger, has been invited to join the Global Grid Forum's Advisory Council (GFAC). The Global Grid Forum (GGF) promotes the adoption of grid computing by defining grid specifications that lead to broadly adopted standards and interoperable software and by building an international community for the exchange of ideas and best practices.

Doninger, who has spoken, presented and written extensively on grid computing, is a widely recognized industry leader and advocate for this technology. With more than 20 years experience at SAS, she helps set the company's technical direction for increasing SAS(R) software's performance and scalability, including SAS' new grid computing functionality.

Insight Research Corporation, a market research firm, estimates worldwide grid spending will grow from $714.9 million in 2005 to approximately $19.2 billion in 2010.

"Cheryl was a natural choice for GFAC," says GGF chairman Mark Linesch. "Cheryl is a key leader within this community and offers a keen perspective regarding enterprise applications and grid technologies."

GFAC's next meeting will be in mid-February at the 16th Global Grid Forum (GGF16) in Athens, Greece. As invited experts from the international grid community, Doninger and other council members will advise the GGF chair and steering committee on technical, business and policy issues associated with grid computing worldwide.

An innovative leader in grid computing technology, SAS was the first enterprise business intelligence vendor to join GGF. SAS is also a pioneer vendor delivering grid automation capabilities across multiple solutions, integrating the benefits of grid computing with the enormous power of SAS analytics. With SAS, customers obtain critical information more quickly and leverage knowledge to gain competitive advantage.

About GGF

GGF is an international community of users, developers and vendors leading the global standardization effort for grid computing. This community works for the comprehensive adoption of grid computing worldwide, because it believes grids will lead to new discoveries, new opportunities and better business practices. GGF is comprised of thousands of individuals in industry and research, representing more than 400 organizations in 50 countries.

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 40,000 sites - including 96 of the top 100 companies on the FORTUNE Global 500(R) - 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 three decades, 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) 2006 SAS Institute Inc. Cary, NC, USA. All rights reserved.