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Data Warehousing and Data Mining Drive SAS Institute Revenues to Record Level SAS Institute, the worldwide leader in data warehousing and decision support software, has announced results for the 1997 financial year, reporting its twenty-first consecutive year of double-digit growth. Total revenue for SAS software and services totalled $750 million, a 15 percent increase over 1996 revenues. SAS Institute President Jim Goodnight said: "As the data warehouse market begins to mature, we are no longer seeing just the early adopters testing the concept - it's proven among our customers, so we are seeing data warehousing enter the mainstream of medium to large businesses. This trend has spurred growth in our decision support offerings as businesses make data more accessible." Accounting for nearly half of software revenue, SAS Institute's data warehousing solution continues to attract industry honours with numerous awards being received over the last year, including the Datamation 'Product of the Year' award for the second year in a row. Other awards comprised best software supplier in the areas of data acquisition, data quality and data delivery for data warehousing, best multidimensional OLAP tools and clients, and the top supplier of data mining software. The awards are supported by the views of industry analysts with Meta Group confirming in its January 1998 report on data warehousing that SAS Institute is the perceived leader in data mining applications. SAS Institute is increasing its focus on delivering business solutions based on data warehousing and decision support technologies, including solutions for customer relationship management, financial reporting and consolidation and enterprise resource planning. SAS Institute remains focused on solving real business problems by producing software that aids in successful decision making. The company achieves this goal through its close relationship to customers and deep commitment to research and development. In 1997 SAS Institute invested 32 percent of revenue in R&D - about double the percentage contributed by other major software vendors. SAS Institute reported healthy growth worldwide, outpacing negative currency conversions. In local currencies, the Asia/Pacific region experienced a 17 percent increase, Europe's revenue was up 22 percent, and North America was up 19 percent over 1996 revenue. Adjusted to US dollars, North America contributed 53 percent, Europe contributed 37 percent, and Asia/Pacific and other international regions contributed 10 percent to SAS Institute's software and services revenue. The trend toward customer relationship management has spurred industries facing heated competition to adopt or expand data warehousing and data mining practices. This trend has driven significant increases in new revenue - up nearly 50 percent over 1996 revenue - from the banking/finance, telecommunications, and health care industries, as well as over 80 percent from insurance companies. New sales from manufacturing firms led all other market segments, more than doubling, as the manufacturing industry embraced data warehousing to improve supply chain management, quality assurance and customer satisfaction processes. As more and more businesses build their data warehouses, they are implementing associated business intelligence systems to drill through and report on the data. SAS Institute is enhancing its OLAP, reporting, data mining, and web-enablement abilities to increase the return on investment businesses expect from their data warehouses. The early adopters of data warehousing are now leading their industries in implementing data mining solutions and web-enabled data warehousing applications.20 Goodnight said: "While we have already established market leadership in these areas, businesses are just breaking the surface with what they can do with this technology. Data mining in particular is an area of strength for SAS Institute and will continue to drive revenues to record levels in the next few years."