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CARY, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 11, 2006--The benefits of locating businesses in lower-income communities aren't always readily apparent. SAS, the leader in business intelligence, and Social Compact, a Washington, DC-based coalition of American business leaders, plan to change that. Using more than $200,000 worth of donated SAS software, including the award-winning SAS BI Server, Social Compact will give potential investors a clear picture of investment opportunities in underserved parts of the US.

SAS and Social Compact, a 16-year-old nonprofit organization, today announced a two-year deal that gives the coalition the ability to more deeply assess existing market opportunities and also predict strong emerging markets that may have been overlooked. Armed with this information, Social Compact will be better equipped to educate bankers, retailers, nonprofits and other potential investors on the strengths and opportunities in underserved neighborhoods.

"SAS is uniquely able to help us perform faster, deeper analyses that will speed up economic investment in underserved areas," said Social Compact CEO John Talmage. "Social Compact's relationship with SAS is going to help us reinvent the field of community development."

Specifically, Social Compact is standardizing its Neighborhood Market DrillDown analysis methodology on the SAS Enterprise Intelligence Platform. DrillDowns analyze inner-city markets and create accurate, business-oriented profiles of "emerging" neighborhood markets. Drawing on business disciplines and community strength, DrillDown profiles have a strong track record of spurring sustainable private investment, benefiting both communities and businesses.

SAS General Manager David Macdonald said the SAS BI platform will "enable Social Compact to scale to the current and growing demand for their DrillDown product, as well as increase the coverage of their research service. SAS will provide a cohesive intelligence infrastructure as well as more advanced data management, analysis and reporting capabilities."

Longtime SAS customer Citigroup, one of the world's largest financial services companies with around 120 million customers in more than 100 countries, introduced SAS capabilities to Social Compact.

"Economic development raises the quality of life for individuals, families and institutions and as a result strengthens communities around the world," said Ron Guggenheimer, Senior Vice President and Director, Citi Cards. "The DrillDown analysis provides a unique opportunity to develop a highly refined tool to predict market potential to boost development in underserved communities. Our participation with SAS and Social Compact in this effort is only one of numerous ways that we demonstrate our strong commitment to make the communities in which we live and work better as a result of Citigroup's presence."

About Social Compact

Social Compact is a coalition of business leaders from across the country who are promoting successful business investments in underserved communities. Social Compact leverages its leadership's combined business expertise to address key impediments to private investment in inner-city communities: negative stereotypes, poverty and deficiency data, a lack of dependable business-oriented market information and an absence of effective inner-city market analysis models. Through its research and analysis, Social Compact aims to fuel the long-term competitive strength of lower-income communities by attracting needed capital.

About SAS

SAS is the leader in business intelligence software and services. Customers at 40,000 sites use SAS software to improve performance through insight into vast amounts of data, resulting in faster, more accurate business decisions; more profitable relationships with customers and suppliers; compliance with governmental regulations; research breakthroughs; and better products. Only SAS offers leading data integration, intelligence storage, advanced analytics and business intelligence applications within a comprehensive enterprise intelligence platform. Since 1976, SAS has been giving customers around the world THE POWER TO KNOW(R). www.sas.com

SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries. (R) indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies.(C) 2006

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