SAS and MERANT Partner to Enhance SAS DW Solutions

SAS Institute, one of the world's largest privately held software companies and a leader in data warehousing and e-intelligence, and MERANT, a leading global e-business software solutions company, announced that SAS will integrate MERANT's data access technology, DataDirect, with SAS' data warehousing solutions to provide enhanced access to Microsoft SQL Server from UNIX platforms.

The agreement extends the flexibility of SAS' comprehensive data warehousing offerings.

MERANT DataDirect provides an easier way for users of UNIX-based SAS data warehousing solutions to access and process data stored in Microsoft SQL Server databases. With the integration of MERANT's standards-based technology, SAS customers can further leverage their significant investments in Microsoft SQL Server databases, extending the power of their SAS applications to access data across multiple environments for a competitive advantage.

"A growing number of companies are using Microsoft SQL Server as their underlying database foundation for data marts, while UNIX is considered the standard for deploying enterprise-class applications," said Tony Fisher, director of data warehousing technologies at SAS. "We were looking for the capability to help our customers leverage their UNIX-based SAS applications with strategic data stored in SQL Server. MERANT was an obvious choice to provide this capability. Not only is MERANT one of the leaders in data access technology, but it has an exclusive source-code license with Microsoft to port SQL Server data connectivity to UNIX."

Data access has long been one of SAS' unique strengths, and the agreement with MERANT provides another key way for customers to access their mission-critical data - in this case from SQL Server - and pull it into a SAS data warehouse for analysis and decision support. SAS software helps organizations leverage their data assets by providing transparent access to all major database management systems, as well as flat files, system-specific host files, and other historical or legacy data types, in addition to SAS' own relational data structure. It can also operate with data gateways such as ODBC.

"MERANT and SAS development teams have worked closely to ensure the highest level of compatibility for our customers," said Michael Consoli, MERANT senior vice president and general manager. "We're thrilled SAS has decided to embed MERANT's technology. With this partnership, MERANT continues to establish itself as the vendor of choice to provide market-leading data access and integration for major commercial software companies."

About MERANT

MERANT is a leading global e-business software solutions company. Founded in 1976, MERANT has approximately $360 million in annual revenues, 2,000 employees and more than 500 technology partners. More than 5 million professionals use MERANT technology solutions at 35,000 customer sites, including the entire Fortune 100, the majority of the Global 500 and over 400 leading dotcoms. MERANT uses its Egility framework, a comprehensive set of solutions combining expertise, market-leading technology, best practices and an extensive network of partners, to deliver an e-business applications infrastructure. Building on MERANT Egility, MERANT provides comprehensive enterprise-strength e-business solutions for companies, including e-business strategy, creative design, application development and legacy integration. For additional information, visit www.merant.com.

About SAS

SAS, 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. Founded in 1976, 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. For more information, please visit the SAS Web site at www.sas.com.

Contact SAS Institute, Mike Nemecek or Pamela Meek, 919-677-8000 x5140, Mike.Nemecek@sas.com or MERANT, Lori Baccanari, 919-461-4241, lori.baccanari@merant.com.