IBM and SAS will create a consulting practice

SAS Institute and IBM, have formed a consulting practice to encourage the development of BI solutions that integrate IBM’s DB2 database and SAS software. This latest e-business partnership follows recent IBM partnerships with software vendors Siebel Systems and SAP. The news of the SAS and IBM collaboration came at IBM’s business partner event PartnerWorld 2000.

"With joint solutions from IBM and SAS Institute, information-driven e-businesses will quickly differentiate themselves," said Ben Barnes, manager of IBM’s Global Business Intelligence Solutions. "More than 2,700 sites and 1,900 companies are running SAS software and DB2 Universal Database, so tighter integration will help these joint customers and attract new ones."

IBM Global Services will provide the analytical services, systems integration and e-business consulting expertise. SAS Institute will provide software for customer relationship management (CRM) --. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and supplier relationship management (SRM).

These consultants will work with joint customers to integrate the decision support capabilities of SAS solutions with existing transaction systems and other IBM e-business applications. Closer integration of SAS solutions and DB2 Universal Database to enhance performance on all IBM server platforms.

The joint-development efforts are the latest example of a history of IBM and SAS collaboration. Last year, the companies created the IBM and SAS Institute International Competency Center, which provides customers and sales teams worldwide with assistance and resources for sizing, design and configuration, benchmark testing, and implementation of a host of SAS software solutions - for data mining, data warehousing, and other business intelligence functions - running on leading IBM server platforms and DB2.