SAS, the world's largest privately held business intelligence company, continues its position as a leading business intelligence vendor according to a recent report from Gartner, a prominent analyst firm. Based on 2004 new license sales, Gartner ranked SAS as the No. 1 business intelligence vendor in Asia Pacific with 17.5 percent share of revenue. According to Gartner, the top six countries (based on new license revenue) in the Asia Pacific region include Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, China and Hong Kong. This report follows a similar report Gartner issued on the worldwide BI software market, which confirmed SAS' position as a leading global BI vendor with 15.8 percent of the BI market share. The earlier report from Gartner also highlighted the worldwide growth of the BI market, which increased 12 percent from slightly less than US$1.9 billion in 2003 to US$2.1 billion in 2004. "We believe these Gartner reports confirm two things: the growing demand for BI solutions and SAS' worldwide BI leadership," said Phillip Beniacl, President SAS Asia Pacific. "Customers are realizing how critical it is to move beyond traditional BI tools like query and reporting and to standardize their BI tools on a common platform. As the only vendor that completely integrates data warehousing, analytics and traditional BI applications, SAS is well-equipped to meet the growing need for reliable data and for improved total cost of ownership, while, at the same time, meeting the company's own double-digit growth targets." "We believe Gartner's ranking of SAS as the no. 1 BI vendor in Asia Pacific confirms the tangible benefits that we bring to companies throughout this region," said Sung-Sik, Cho, Country Manager of SAS Korea "SAS has a track record of nearly three decades of customer-driven growth and we have achieved 20 percent revenue growth in Asia Pacific last year. SAS will continue to invest heavily in R&D to ensure our customers are equipped with a solid business analytics architecture that supports their business processes." The latest Gartner report, which evaluated market size in terms of new license revenue and excluded earnings from maintenance and professional services or number of installations, highlights SAS' leadership in the Asia- Pacific region, which has been marked by steady growth in the BI space. SAS continues to grow in the Asia Pacific region, both in terms of revenue and customer base. The Asia Pacific region contributed 10 percent to overall SAS turnover of US$1.53 billion in 2004. With over 6,000 customers and more than 1,000 employees across 14 countries in Asia Pacific, SAS leads the market with its SAS 9 Enterprise Intelligence Platform and its business solution applications. SAS Enterprise BI Server, a major component of the SAS 9 Enterprise Intelligence Platform, is an integral factor of SAS' growth in the BI space. The SAS 9 platform empowers users at all levels of an organization by giving them targeted interfaces to support their individual needs and skills. SAS Enterprise BI Server provides a suite of BI functions including reporting, query and analysis, OLAP, integrated analytics, visualization, and integration with Microsoft Office environments. More information about SAS Enterprise BI Server can be found at http://www.sas.com/technologies/ bi/entbiserver/ index.html.