SAS honors key partners at annual user event

Five partners receive prestigious awards for boosting SAS® BI sales in 2005

SAN FRANCISCO  (March 28, 2006)  —  At the 31st annual SAS® Users Group International (SUGI) conference in San Francisco, SAS honored five of its partners at an awards ceremony and reception held last night at the San Francisco Marriott. The awards recognize companies that go above and beyond in providing business intelligence sales, service and support for SAS customers.

"The SAS Alliance program — including hardware and software providers, systems integrators, consultants, and resellers — continues to offer a strong network of partnerships that give organizations access to unparalleled domain, industry and technology expertise," said Don McDougall, vice president of the SAS Customer Solutions & Alliance Division. "Working closely with our partners combines their knowledge of industry and solution domain expertise with the breadth and depth of SAS technology and solutions, providing our joint customers with the most comprehensive and successful business intelligence solutions available."

Inaugural Partner of the Year Awards
For the first time, SAS Americas presented two partners with its highest awards: Consulting Partner of the Year and Technology Partner of the Year. Accenture received the Consulting Partner of the Year Award for generating the most overall revenues for SAS within this category due to its extensive industry and domain knowledge, thereby raising SAS' visibility as a BI market leader. HP earned the Technology Partner of the Year Award for providing dedicated sales, marketing and engineering teams that support of SAS' continued growth within life sciences, financial services and other industries. "HP and Accenture made many significant contributions in 2005 to ensure the success of SAS and our mutual clients, and we are pleased to have the opportunity to recognize them with this award," said McDougall.

Field Choice and Services Excellence Awards
For the third year in a row, Qualex Consulting Services received the SAS Field Choice Award for its outstanding support on sales engagements. Integral in the Pearl River Resort account, Qualex's long history and close involvement with SAS enabled Qualex to identify other opportunities within the resort that would benefit from SAS software, specifically SAS Financial Management. The Services Excellence Award went to ThotWave Technologies for its active support of numerous health and life sciences sales engagements, providing high quality services when installing and configuring SAS business intelligence software.

Candidates for these awards are nominated by members of the SAS sales staff to recognize outstanding partner sales activities over the past year. "Close collaboration with our partners enables us to go beyond customers' expectations to help them solve business issues," said Kelly Ross, vice president of U.S. Commercial Sales at SAS. "You can't put a price on the value of the relationships between the SAS sales force and our partners as far as market knowledge, vision, integrity and the resulting customer satisfaction. SUGI is a great opportunity to highlight those partners that have made a difference with our end users. We are thankful for all their hard work and support."

Pearl River Resort already relies on SAS® Marketing Automation to warehouse and analyze guest data, resulting in more effective marketing programs and enhanced guest experiences. The resort is being recognized for its outstanding efforts during the SAS Enterprise Intelligence Awards ceremony at this year's SAS Users Group International (SUGI) meeting in San Francisco.

Pearl River Resort encompasses two Las Vegas—style casinos, a 36—hole golf course, a water park and white sand beach, along with numerous stops for dining, shopping and other entertainment. Pearl River Resort has become popular throughout Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama and Louisiana.

"SAS Financial Management enables us to achieve transparency, consistency and accuracy with a common data model and simplified data management tools. SAS solutions will make it easier for us to react quickly to changing market conditions," said Pearl River Resort President Chuck Miller. "We feel these solutions will bring us closer to the vision the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, Chief Phillip Martin and the tribal leaders have for Pearl River Resort."

SAS Financial Management also empowers Pearl River Resort to:

• Reduce costs without compromising profitability.
• Establish repeatable, sustainable processes for collecting and analyzing financial data.
• Create a consistent view of financials.
• Accelerate analysis of financial information.
• Facilitate collaborative budgeting and planning.
• Improve financial performance.

To improve the quality of its data, Pearl River Resort uses technology from DataFlux, a SAS subsidiary (www.dataflux.com), to parse, cleanse and standardize information prior to loading the data into the warehouse.

"We're delighted that Pearl River Resort has expanded its use of SAS Business Intelligence," said Jim Davis, SAS senior vice president and chief marketing officer. "The addition of SAS Financial Management significantly strengthens the resort's analytic and predictive capabilities, creating long-term advantages in a highly competitive environment."

"By supporting the initial implementation of SAS Marketing Automation, we were able to see other areas within Pearl River Resort that could gain value from SAS software, specifically SAS Financial Management," said Mario Perkins, director of North America operations at Qualex. 

Qualex Consulting Services is a premier SAS software solutions services company and a Gold—level member of the SAS Alliance. Qualex has worked closely with SAS for several years as the leading implementation partner in the gaming industry and has taken an active role in the development of the SAS gaming solutions. Qualex brings to the gaming industry experience from a wide array of industries that include financial services, insurance, telecommunications, energy, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, retail, healthcare and government agencies since 1995.

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