Microsoft
and SAS have announced an extensive technology and go-to-market
strategic partnership. The two companies will enable customers to run
their SAS workloads in the cloud, expanding their business solutions and
unlocking critical value from their digital transformation initiatives.
As
part of the partnership, the companies will migrate SAS’ analytical
products and industry solutions onto Microsoft Azure as the preferred
cloud provider for the SAS Cloud. SAS’ industry solutions and expertise
will also bring added value to Microsoft’s customers
across industries like health care and financial services. This
partnership builds on SAS integrations across Microsoft cloud solutions
for Azure, Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365 and Power Platform and supports
the companies’ shared vision to further democratise AI and analytics.
Says Scott Guthrie, Microsoft executive vice president of cloud and AI: “Through this partnership, Microsoft and SAS will help our customers accelerate growth and find new ways to drive innovation with a broad set of SAS Analytics offerings on Microsoft Azure. SAS, with its recognized expertise in analytics, data science and machine learning, is a strategic partner for Microsoft, and together we will help customers across dozens of industries and horizontals address their most critical and complex analytical challenges.”
“SAS and Microsoft have a shared vision of helping customers accelerate their digital transformation initiatives,” says Oliver Schabenberger, SAS chief technology officer and chief operating officer. “We both understand that it is about enrichment of data and
improving lives through better decisions. Partnering with Microsoft
gives customers a more seamless path to the cloud that provides faster,
more powerful and easier access to SAS solutions and enables trusted
decisions with analytics that everyone – regardless of skill level – can understand.”
Organisations
around the world are moving to the cloud to innovate and move faster
toward their business goals. As part of this transition, many customers,
like St. Louis-based health system Mercy, are migrating their SAS
analytic workloads to Azure to improve performance and cost-efficiency.
“At
Mercy, we’re focused on how to continuously improve patient care and
outcomes and realize the role of data analytics, machine learning in
bringing that focus to light,” said Curtis Dudley, Mercy vice president
of data analytics. “Working with SAS and Microsoft,
we can capitalize on analytics software and the Azure cloud platform to
strengthen our ability to harness Real World Evidence for improved
outcomes and more informed care. We’re excited about the potential for
increased speed, scalability and an expanded catalogue of analytics solutions the SAS and Microsoft partnership brings in helping us deliver a new care model.”
Through
the partnership, Microsoft and SAS will explore opportunities to
integrate SAS analytics capabilities, including industry-specific
models, within Azure and Dynamics 365 and build new market-ready joint
solutions for customers that are natively integrated with SAS services across multiple vertical industries.
This further integration will enable SAS customers to capitalise
on the scalability and flexibility of the cloud for their analytics and
AI workloads. For example, Microsoft and SAS are already empowering
customers with solutions that help them capitalize at scale on the vast
amount of data being generated by the Internet of Things by combining
Microsoft’s Azure IoT platform with SAS’ edge-to-cloud IoT analytics and
AI capabilities.
Supported
with joint co-selling and go-to-market activities, additional SAS
products and solutions will begin rolling out later this year. This will
enable SAS and Microsoft customers to address some of their most
critical and complex analytical challenges
while fostering continuous innovation. SAS is also committed to using
Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365 to power its internal operations.
To learn more about how SAS and Microsoft are partnering and to register for an upcoming SAS on Azure virtual event, visit sas.com/Microsoft.
