APPLICATIONS

ESRI, a leader in geographic information system (GIS) software, and SAS, the leader in business intelligence, have integrated SAS 9 software with ESRI's ArcGIS 9 software to provide more information for decision making. The recent release of version 2 of SAS Bridge for ESRI enhances the joint capabilities of SAS and ESRI, allowing users to take full advantage of network and computing environments. The new version supports remote processing and features support for distributed SAS server environments, support for raster data and spatial geometry, enhanced performance and both VBA and .Net class properties and components. The integration of SAS(r)9 and ArcGIS 9 enables linkage between the two software platforms at the foundation level, allowing seamless exchange of spatial and non-spatial information in a unified environment. This promotes comprehensive understanding of inherently spatial-based questions. "Spatial information brings a rich view of fast-breaking trends that impact a business. Unfortunately, analytics and GIS have emerged separately and have served different constituencies," said Henry Morris, Group Vice President for Applications and Information Access at IDC. "The SAS Bridge for ESRI opens a way for SAS' and ESRI's mutual customers to add the valuable dimension of location to business understanding and intelligence." ArcGIS 9 extends the ArcGIS platform with major new capabilities in the areas of geoprocessing, 3D visualization, cartography and labeling, data interoperability, usability and developer options. Rich Turner, ESRI's ArcGIS group product manager, points out that "ArcGIS is a framework of integrated GIS software products for building a complete GIS. The fundamental architecture of ArcGIS enables users to deploy GIS functionality and business logic wherever it is needed in desktops, servers, over the Web, or in a mobile environment. This architecture, coupled with the broad and deep capabilities of SAS 9, means organizations are now able to deliver on the promise of enterprise-wide, spatial business intelligence. Our relationship with SAS ensures GIS users are empowered to improve their productivity and delivery of location-based decisions, extending the reach and insight gleaned from spatial information." "An exciting new realm of geospatial intelligence capabilities is available to our customers by combining the power and flexibility of the ArcGIS 9 and SAS 9 platforms using the SAS Bridge for ESRI," says Jim Metcalf, SAS Director of Technology Platform Product Management. "With the SAS Bridge for ESRI, functionality and platform interoperability between SAS and ESRI are significantly enhanced and amplified to deliver enterprise-wide geospatial business intelligence." GIS combines layers of information about a location to provide a better understanding of that place. Which layers of information are combined depends on the purpose - finding the best location for a new facility, analyzing risk, managing assets, incident tracking and analysis, and so on. SAS and ESRI enable organizations to apply the best technology to solve real- world questions that inherently consider the impact of spatial relationships as part of the intelligence creation process.