SAS and Microsoft Partner on Future of Analytics And AI

Microsoft Corp. and SAS recently announced an extensive technology and go-to-market strategic partnership, through which the two companies reportedly will enable customers to run SAS workloads in the cloud, expand business solutions and unlock value from digital transformation initiatives.

According to the announcement, 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 health care, financial services and many other industries.

“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, EVP, Cloud and AI, Microsoft. “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.”

To provide a seamless experience and help organizations accelerate cloud transformation initiatives, SAS and Microsoft said they are working together to ensure that SAS products and solutions can be successfully deployed and run effectively on Azure.

“SAS and Microsoft have a shared vision of helping customers accelerate their digital transformation initiatives. We both understand that it is about enrichment of data and improving lives through better decisions,” said Oliver Schabenberger, CTO and COO, SAS. “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.”