SAS inks partnership to make tech giant Microsoft its preferred cloud provider
Triangle technology company SAS and computing giant Microsoft said Monday they are teaming up to make SAS’ analytics tools more accessible through Microsoft’s cloud services.
The move comes as many companies — and SAS customers — are trying to move their businesses to the cloud because of the disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
With the pandemic forcing workers out of the office, the trend toward placing applications and data storage on cloud services — making it easier for employees to work outside of the office — has accelerated.
Even before the pandemic, cloud services were expected to grow by 17% in 2020, according to research firm Gartner, and the increasing importance of cloud services is why IBM decided to buy Raleigh-based Red Hat last year.
SAS said migrating its tools and programs, like its Viya analytics program, onto Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform will make it easier for companies to make those transitions. SAS added it will still support customers who choose other cloud providers other than Azure.
Microsoft’s Azure is the second largest cloud provider, trailing only Amazon Web Services, according to a 2019 report from Synergy Research Group. Both Amazon (with 32% of the cloud market share) and Microsoft (18% market share) together have a large lead over competitors like Google, IBM and Oracle, according to Synergy Research Group.
“SAS and Microsoft have a shared vision of helping customers accelerate their digital transformation initiatives,” SAS’ Chief Technology Officer Oliver Schabenberger said in a statement. “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.”
New products coming
The partnership brings together one of the Triangle’s largest employers and a titan of the technology industry, which is expanding its presence in the region. Microsoft is currently adding nearly 1,000 new jobs across North Carolina after receiving incentives from the state, The News & Observer previously reported. (Microsoft already employed nearly 2,000 people in North Carolina — 1,400 of which were based in Mecklenburg County.)
The deal will also incentivize the two companies to come together to find new customers and create new SAS products for the Azure platform. In their announcements, SAS and Microsoft said they hope to roll out new products and solutions later this year.
Jim Hare, an analyst at Gartner, said that while SAS has offered cloud options for its products in the past, “there has generally been a lack of awareness with [its] customers.”
“Most of SAS customer install base is currently deployed on-premise. SAS’ partnership with Microsoft will help SAS showcase that their SAS Viya offerings are cloud-ready and optimized for Azure,” Hare said in an email. “This will make it faster and easier for SAS customers to transition from on-premise to cloud.”
And Microsoft will benefit, he said, because SAS will add new analytics solutions for customers already running on Azure.
The move comes as SAS, which employs 5,500 people at its Cary headquarters, meets one of its most challenging economic moments in its history.
SAS streak in jeopardy
The analytics company has made a profit every year since it was founded by Jim Goodnight, a former N.C. State University professor, in 1976. But, the slowdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic could put that streak in jeopardy.
Goodnight, 77, told Bloomberg News in a rare interview earlier this year that SAS might not make a profit this year.
“Financially we’re in good shape,” he told Bloomberg. “We’re not going to have any furloughs or layoffs in response to the pandemic. We may not make any money this year, but we made plenty in the past to get us by.”
Goodnight is the richest man living in North Carolina, with a net worth of more than $12 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. Learn more; go to bit.ly/newsinnovate
This story was originally published June 15, 2020 at 11:00 AM.