SAS Acquires Data Cleansing Software Company DataFlux

SAS Institute, a market leader in Web-enabled data warehousing and decision support, announced that it has acquired DataFlux Corp, a Raleigh, N.C.-based developer of data cleansing software tools that increase the accuracy and usability of corporate databases. The purchase is part of SAS' recently announced effort to boost investment in complementary technologies to accelerate new products to market. DataFlux technology extends SAS data warehousing capabilities for customer relationship management (CRM).

DataFlux will retain its corporate and product names and Raleigh offices, and Stephen Wiehe will remain the president and CEO, reporting to the board of directors. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

"We're pleased to join the SAS family of companies and look forward to integrating our Blue Fusion data cleansing technology with SAS' leading data warehousing, CRM and decision-support solutions," said Wiehe. "Incorporating DataFlux technology into the many different SAS solutions makes perfect sense and provides a tremendous opportunity for continued rapid deployment of business-intelligence applications."

Data cleansing vs. "Garbage In, Garbage Out"

Data cleansing is the process of ensuring that all values in a database are consistent and correctly recorded. It is a critical step in information intense, customer-oriented activities such as e-commerce and CRM. It also plays a key role in data warehousing and data mining.

Companies in all industries collect huge volumes of data every day: customer and clickstream data from e-business applications, financial data from global operations, supplier data from procurement systems, quality data from manufacturing, network data from computer systems, etc. SAS solutions help companies turn this mass of data into information for better business decisions. Yet, to maximize the effectiveness and accuracy of high-end analytical applications like data mining, for example, the adage "garbage in, garbage out" readily applies. If a company's data is not cleansed and scrubbed, the quality of the analysis - and the decisions based on it - can be compromised.

"Poor data quality is one of the leading causes of data warehouse failure, and can compromise business decision-making when those decisions are not made on quality, cleansed data," said Jim Davis, director of product strategy at SAS. "The addition of DataFlux and its technology to SAS' offerings gives customers yet another powerful, competitive weapon powering their efforts to better know their customers, their suppliers, and their own internal operations."

Extending SAS' Offerings with Blue Fusion

SAS Institute already provides key analytic tools to help in the cleansing and scrubbing data from transactional systems. Now, SAS will extend its offerings with the addition of DataFlux's proprietary Blue Fusion technology, which helps companies and organizations to standardize data in formats such as those required by U.S. Postal Service (USPS) certification programs and integrate data from outside sources. Blue Fusion also identifies and eliminates duplicate records and redundant data.

DataFlux's technology can be applied to e-commerce, CRM and other software working with almost any type of data, from personal, company and product names to address data, phone numbers and user IDs.

For example, in the direct marketing efforts of banks, insurance companies, catalog retailers, telecommunications firms and others, mailing addresses are used to identify individual households. Yet a common problem is that a single household may appear to have multiple addresses because of inconsistent information entered into different databases over the years.

Among its many uses, DataFlux's Blue Fusion technology helps companies involved in direct-mail campaigns to clean and standardize address data in order to conform with USPS certification programs. Through certification in these programs, such as Coding Accuracy Support System (CASS) and Presort Accuracy, Validation, and Evaluation (PAVE), companies can save on postal rates. For companies that rely heavily on direct mail, a small decrease in postal rates can translate into substantial savings.

With Blue Fusion, companies can also easily work with outside data sources such as Topological Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER)/ZIP+4 files. A TIGER /ZIP+4 file provides marketers and others with a method to relate ZIP+4 coded address lists to U.S. Census Bureau demographic data, so that they can better understand their customers.

"DataFlux adds an important technology component to our customerrelationship -management and other offerings," said Andre Boisvert, vice president of business development and strategic investments at SAS. "We're pleased to bring the DataFlux team into the SAS family of companies, and will continue to aggressively seek out new partnerships and acquisition candidates to ensure that our customers continue to have access to the best decision support and e-intelligence solutions on the market today."

"SAS is a phenomenal company, and this acquisition provides DataFlux with an excellent opportunity to increase our exposure on a worldwide level," said Bob Brauer, DataFlux co-founder and vice president of products. "Addressing the need for accurate, reliable data for the delivery of time-critical business solutions is a priority for both SAS and DataFlux. This technology integration will provide substantial value in the areas of data quality and cleansing solutions for data warehousing, CRM and Web-enabled data-driven solutions."

DataFlux is just the latest new SAS company. Late last month, SAS spun off iBiomatics LLC, its first business-to-business Internet company. Like DataFlux, iBiomatics is a wholly owned subsidiary of SAS. iBiomatics will enable researchers in the life sciences industry to better understand and predict the safety and effectiveness of drugs and medical devices at Internet speed.

About DataFlux

Founded in 1996 and currently with 25 employees, DataFlux is a North Carolina-based software company with a core mission to develop and commercialize innovative, intuitive, and cost-competitive data quality control and similarity-searching software products. These products are designed to significantly improve the accuracy, consistency, and usability of an organization's critical data, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of datadriven applications and initiatives such as data warehousing, e-commerce systems, data mining, customer information systems, sales force automation, marketing databases, customer/prospect profiling, and list management. Among DataFlux's previous investors is The Aurora Funds, a venture capital firm investing in emerging technology-based companies in the Southeastern United States. For more on DataFlux, visit: www.dataflux.com.

About SAS Institute

SAS Institute, one of the world's largest privately held software companies, is a leader in decision support and data warehousing, providing integrated enterprise information-delivery solutions and e-business solutions. SAS 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 110 countries. SAS' 1999 revenues totaled $1.02 billion. Please visit SAS' Web site: www.sas.com.

Technology Backgrounder - DataFlux's Blue Fusion Technology

The rapid growth of stored data - from e-business and e-commerce systems, CRM and quality applications, call centers and internal operations, etc. - has forced an evolution in data management: the need to clean and enhance the quality and value of existing data has become crucial. This is accomplished primarily through the elimination of non-standardized, duplicate, or even incorrect data, as well as by improving the value of the existing data through data consolidation and augmentation, such as user names appended with external demographic data.

Redundant or duplicate data is a problem not only facing older existing systems, but also newer systems, such as Web portals, e-commerce sites and online auctions. Many sites have multiple user names or accounts from the same person, and similar products under multiple listings.

DataFlux's Blue Fusion technology uses similarity searching and fuzzy logic to find and recognize similar data patterns in databases and data sets. With traditional technology, if names appear in a mailing list, client list, user ID or other list, for example, each name is treated as unique. However, software using Blue Fusion technology can easily identify each different permutation of the same individual. Once identified, these duplicate records can be deleted, modified or merged into one primary contact.

DataFlux's technology has been applied to many different types of data, including: -- Personal Names -- Product or Brand Names -- User IDs -- Diseases -- Company Names -- Social Security Numbers -- Website Customer Info. -- Ship to Addresses -- Mailing Addresses -- Online Data -- Geographical Data -- Telephone Numbers -- Generic Text -- Cities, States, Zip -- International Data -- Numerical Data

DataFlux's Blue Fusion technology has been built over the last 4 years and includes over 12 man-years of design and engineering efforts. Customers include leading telecommunications, financial services, manufacturing, health insurance and other companies, such as MCI, Bank of Boston, Raytheon, Sony, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Eaton Corporation and Compaq.

Contact SAS Institute Inc, Mike Nemecek, 919-677-8000 x5140, Mike.Nemecek@sas.com or DataFlux Corporation, Katie Fabiszak, 919-846-9000 x222, katief@dataflux.com, www.dataflux.com.