SAS Shows “Highest Momentum” in Business Analytics

SAS demonstrated "the most diversity and highest momentum" among the top vendors in the business analytics software market in a report issued by prominent analyst firm IDC.

According to IDC's "Worldwide Business Analytics Software 2006-2010 Forecast and 2005 Vendor Shares" report (Doc # 203468, Sept. 2006), SAS' sales of business analytics software totaled $1.39 billion in 2005, growing 13.6 percent over the previous year's figures and giving SAS an 8.4 percent share of the overall market. 

Topping the big ten
The authors noted that, of the top ten vendors – SAS, Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, SAP, Business Objects, Cognos, Hyperion Solutions, Teradata and Fair Isaac – "SAS has the most diversity within the [business analytics] software market. SAS has a broad portfolio of products that spans all segments of the market. At the same time it holds one of the top shares in several of the [business analytics] market segments."

"SAS also had the highest market momentum in the business analytics market," says Dan Vesset, Research Director at IDC. "IDC defines momentum as the company's growth rate weighted by company size in revenue. Given its large size ($1.4 billion) in the BA market, SAS still experienced an above-market growth rate of 13.6%."

A growing market
Overall, IDC says the worldwide market for business analytics software, which includes both application development tools and packaged analytic applications, reached $16.6 billion in 2005, an increase of 11.0 percent over 2004. The authors expect the market for business analytics to grow about 10 percent per year through 2010.

Today's news follows two other recent IDC reports demonstrating SAS' leadership in the market for business intelligence software:

• SAS is ranked second in sales of business intelligence tools in Western Europe according to IDC's "Western European Business Intelligence Tools, 2005 Vendor Shares" report (Doc # LT07N, Aug. 2006). SAS' sales of BI tools grew to 184.6 million Euros in 2005, an 11.6 percent increase over 2004's figures.
  
• For the second year in a row, SAS was acknowledged as the leader in business intelligence and analytics applications sales in Latin America. SAS was reported with a 15.25 percent market share in the "Latin America Semiannual Business Intelligence and Analytic Applications Tracker (2005 data)" report (Doc # LA1677, Jun 2006). Read more.
  

The SAS advantage
"IDC's business analytics report further illustrates the advantage that SAS provides to customers today," says Jim Davis, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for SAS. "We supply a wide range of solutions for lines of business as well as specific vertical industries on the SAS Enterprise Intelligence Platform. These solutions work together to integrate individual technology components within an existing IT infrastructure into a single, unified system that transcends organizational silos, diverse computing platforms and niche tools."