Business intelligence software company SAS claims the
latest rollout of its suite will ease some of the pains for end
users who need to run analytics applications but are put off by
their complexity.
SAS 9.1 is a suite of integration and reporting tools with an
easier-to-use front end that supports specific business roles in a
company. The release - which has a new client and wizards - will
deliver business intelligence capabilities to as many as 80% of
a company's employees.
Eleanor Taylor, manager of business intelligence strategy at
SAS, said Version 9.1 targeted the decision-makers in
companies.
"SAS has along history of being able to supply strong analytic
capabilities, but it has not reached a mainstream audience," she
said. "We're delivering interfaces for decision-makers who have
experience and strengths in what they do but not in computing, and
they can take analytics and apply them to their
decision-making."
SAS has embedded in the suite a metadata layer that will filter
out irrelevant data and present to the end user only the
information needed. There will also be embedded business rules.
That way, if there is, for instance, a discrepancy in revenue in a
sales report, an end user can drill down and see how the different
calculations were reached.
There are also a number of new wizards to guide users along and
help them find the answers they want without having to write a SQL
query. The integration component of the software will be tightly
linked with Microsoft desktop applications, so that users can run
queries through such as applications as Word, Excel and
Outlook.
Those user-friendly enhancements could be a way to open up the
suite to users who want to run Online Analytical Processing queries
but are intimidated by the software's complexity, said Randy
Collica, a senior business analyst at Hewlett-Packard, which runs a
variety of SAS.
Collica said he intended to look at the enhanced SAS reporting
tool in particular, and he welcomed SAS's additions of Java and XML
capabilities to the software,.
The new version should also help dispel the myth that "SAS can
only be used by actuaries", said Mike Schiff, an analyst at Current
Analysis. The easy-to-use self-service interfaces should appeal to
a wide variety of technical and business users, he added.
SAS 9.1 will be available in limited quantity in August, and
will run on a variety of platforms, including Windows, HP-UX, AIX
and Solaris. Full availability is expected at the end of the year,
and pricing has yet to be finalised.