CARY – The SAS partnership with Microsoft’s Azure cloud is producing impressive results, said SAS co-founder Jim Goodnight in a keynote address at today’s SAS Global Forum.

The company reported a 99 percent increase in its cloud analytics business in 2020 at a press event prior to the forum, including a 34 percent increase in the final quarter of the year.

According to Microsoft CEO Salya Nadella, who spoke at the virtual event, SAS offers a “timely set of innovations going forward, particularly in data governance,” and noted that Microsoft is “looking forward to getting this technology in customer hands.”

Goodnight also told attendees that SAS will work with Red Hat on hybrid cloud environments.

Cloud, Microsoft are driving growth, say SAS executives in laying out 2021 agenda

Other use cases the analytics company is seeing increasing demand: sports, education, and mental health.

For example, SAS assisted the British Olympic Rowing team during the height of the COVID pandemic, providing guidance on training regimens that could be completed individually rather than as an in-person team, using past data as a guide.

Data literacy programs are particularly important right now, Goodnight added.  “They’re immersed in data.  We track their diaper, use, reading time, screen time,” he said of the technology available to parents.  It’s an immense amount of data that Goodnight said is “waiting to be transformed into intelligence.”

According to Goodnight, data analytics can be used to aid insights into mental health service delivery, including how to assess what is working or what isn’t, to evaluate policies and programs, and to analyze data from multiple sources that permit and support further innovation.

The state of SAS: After 5 years of flat revenue, growth may be returning in 2021

What’s the future of SAS?  Analytics, of course, suggested Goodnight.  The world changed in 2020, and the acceleration of the importance of turning data and analytics into action is one trend that SAS is well-positioned to capitalize on in the present moment and in the future.

The coronavirus pandemic helped the company find ways to “push the boundaries of what is possible,” said Goodnight, noting that the company moved to assist hospitals through the analysis of data, adding that the company’s native cloud program Viya will “help us return to normal, return to the office, bring us back to entertainment and sports.”