Microsoft and SAS announce analytics and AI partnership

Microsoft and analytics software firm SAS have announced a technology partnership in the fields of analytics and AI.

The collaboration was said to make it easier for customers to run SAS workloads in the cloud, with Microsoft Azure becoming the preferred cloud provider for the SAS Cloud. Microsoft’s customers in healthcare, finance and other industries will also be able to access SAS industry solutions.

In a press release, Scott Guthrie, Microsoft Executive Vice President of Cloud and AI, said: “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. 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.”

Focuses of the partnership were said to include the optimisation of SAS Viya, the company’s cloud solution, for Azure, alongside the integration of SAS’ industry solutions and analytics capabilities into the Azure Marketplace and Azure respectively.

Also mooted were the building of joint “market-ready” solutions and assisting customers in capitalising on internet of things (IoT) data. That latter partnership involves the combination of Microsoft’s Azure IoT platform with SAS’ edge-to-cloud IoT analytics.

“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, SAS Chief Technology Officer and Chief Operating Officer. “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.”