Hewlett-Packard and SAS Institute In Pact

SAS Institute and Hewlett-Packard Company announced that HP Labs plans to apply SAS e-intelligence and data mining solutions and technologies to a variety of HP offerings. The goal is to address the needs of HP's customers and improve HP's internal processes.

Projects covered by the announcement could further enhance HP's Enterprise Commerce solution and e-intelligence programs through the integration of the SAS Solution for e-Intelligence and SAS' award-winning data-mining software, Enterprise Miner, with HP e-intelligence and e-services offerings. SAS' industry-leading e-intelligence solutions for real-time cross-selling, pricing and promotions will also be applied to several HP Web sites that could benefit from this integration.

"Understanding and predicting customer and supplier behavior via the Web and integrating this information with that from more traditional channels and customer touch-points is crucial, as organizations strive to build long-term, personalized relationships with their customers and suppliers," said Rich Rovner, senior manager for applications marketing at SAS. "By combining the power of business intelligence with the reach of the Web, joint SAS and HP eintelligence solutions will help companies make sense of the huge volumes of data generated by e-business and e-commerce applications, and build and strengthen these key relationships."

HP's Inkjet Business Unit will also apply SAS software to analyze manufacturing data. The knowledge gained can be used to optimize manufacturing processes and predict potential problems in the production line, allowing corrective steps to be taken and maintaining HP's high-quality production standards.

In addition to these near-term projects, HP Labs will explore the integration of SAS software solutions and technologies supporting key HP initiatives in e-business and telecommunications applications.

"We chose SAS for its ease of use, as well as its ability to employ state-ofthe -art data-mining methodologies," said Meichun Hsu, manager of HP Labs data mining. "Another key decision factor was SAS Institute's decades of investment in research and development, which indicates to us that its data mining and eintelligence technology will be a very good fit for the new generation of HP's e-services."

HP will work with SAS to optimize and performance-tune solutions to take full advantage of the HP-UX¹ 64-bit operating environment and HP's e-speakenabled family of UNIX and NT system server architectures. Future offerings will include integration with HP's IA-64 systems.

For more than a decade, HP and SAS Institute have worked together to provide a high level of support for each other and for joint customers. SAS Institute is a premier HP Global Channel Partner and HP e-intelligence partner and continues to be a leading supplier of software solutions on the HP 9000 platform. SAS also supports the latest version of HP-UX (11.0). The strong relationship between the companies has allowed them to collaborate on several key initiatives, including data mining; CRM; and, most recently, datawarehousing solutions for ERP applications. SAS and HP also work closely through the SAS Data Mining Discovery Center and the recently announced HP eCRM knowledge portal, which consists of SAS data-mining solutions and services and HP hardware, support and consulting. Both allow customers to learn about the integrated software and hardware approach that SAS Institute and HP offer for mining CRM and other data.

About HP

Hewlett-Packard Company -- a leading global provider of computing and imaging solutions and services for business and home -- is focused on capitalizing on the opportunities of the Internet and the proliferation of electronic services.

HP announced that it will spin off Agilent Technologies and distribute its shares of Agilent on June 2, 2000 to HP shareowners of record as of May 2, 2000. Agilent consists of HP's test and measurement, semiconductor products, chemical analysis and healthcare solutions businesses.

HP has 85,400 employees worldwide and had total revenue from continuing operations of $42.4 billion in its 1999 fiscal year. Information about HP and its products can be found on the World Wide Web at www.hp.com.

About SAS Institute

SAS Institute, the world's largest privately held software company, is the leader in decision support and data warehousing, providing integrated enterprise information-delivery and e-business solutions. Founded in 1976, the Institute markets packaged business solutions for vertical industry and departmental applications, as well as an integrated suite of software tools and consulting services. These allow companies to transform the wide variety of data within their organizations into information that business users and researchers need to make better decisions. SAS software and services are used at more than 33,000 business, government, and university sites in over 115 countries. SAS' 1999 revenues totaled $1.02 billion. Please visit SAS' Web site: www.sas.com.

¹ HP-UX Release 10.20 and later and HP-UX Release 11.00 and later (in both 32- and 64-bit configurations) on all HP 9000 computers are Open Group UNIX 95 branded products.