SAS and Microsoft Announce Strategic Partnership

Microsoft and SAS announced an extensive technology and go-to-market strategic partnership. The two companies will enable customers to easily 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. 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 democratize AI and analytics.

“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,“ said Scott Guthrie, Microsoft Executive Vice President of Cloud and AI. “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.“

The solutions will include optimizing SAS Viya, the latest release of the company’s cloud-native offering, for Azure as well as integrating SAS’ deep portfolio of industry solutions, from fraud to risk to retail, into the Azure Marketplace to provide improved productivity and enhanced business outcomes for customers. Additionally, through the partnership, two companies 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.