SAS gets into visual analysis in earnest, brings DataFlux unit into the fold

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1 SAS gets into visual analysis in earnest, brings DataFlux unit into the fold Analyst: Krishna Roy 20 Jul, 2012 SAS Institute is looking to turn up the heat in the sizzling business analytics sector with a new offering for the analysis, exploration and discovery of large data sets. Designed for business analysts, SAS Visual Analytics sports a highly visual interface and draws on an internally developed in-memory computation engine, which generates visualizations on the fly and uses the Hadoop open source data-processing framework's file system (HDFS) for local storage. In a separate but equally significant move, the company has decided to no longer run its DataFlux data management division as an independent subsidiary and has brought it under the SAS umbrella in a bid to win a bigger share of the data management market. The 451 Take Although it has sprinkled visual analysis and discovery through a range of offerings and peddled a desktop visual statistical analysis product for more than 20 years, SAS really hasn't had an enterprise-wide highly visual and user-friendly analytic offering until now. Visual Analytics gives it the chance to meet the growing need for business analytics both within in its installed base and outside of it, and also puts the company more on par with the competition. The latter is also served by the integration of the former semi-stand-alone Dataflux data management division. With DataFlux more closely under its parent's wing, SAS should be able to enjoy a bigger piece of the data management pie. However, integration needs careful handling to avoid headcount attrition and other disruptions, which can occur from a loss of independence and shift in focus. Copyright The 451 Group 1

2 Context SAS is attempting to up its game in business analytics and data management. The company moved into the latter arena in 2000 via the acquisition of DataFlux, a data-quality pure play, which has subsequently expanded into MDM and tapped SAS's data integration software to create a data management suite to compete in non-analytics-related software deals. DataFlux, which is led by longtime president and CEO Tony Fisher, has grown to about 200 employees since SAS snagged it. It has also been run as an independent business unit in order to serve a dual-pronged data management strategy. One aspect of this strategy is to cater to data integration, data quality and MDM use-case scenarios that aren't tied to the preparation of analytics, which has been the rationale for running DataFlux at arm's length. The other tenant has been to deliver data management as a foundation technology for all its analytics offerings, which has involved folding data integration, data quality and MDM capabilities through various products. The reported raison d'être behind the assimilation of DataFlux is to better serve customers and prospects and, therefore, win a bigger share of the data management market. We're told the change won't affect DataFlux's product line and that all of the unit will join SAS, including Fisher, who has been offered a senior position within the company. Over on the product front, newly introduced SAS Visual Analytics is a core part of the company's strategy to court business analysts as opposed to the traditional audience of statisticians it has served for many years. Visual Analytics is a drag-and-drop visual analysis product, obviating the need to code in the SAS language, and it is designed for the analysis of terabytes of data, which can be shared with a broad audience via desktop, Web and mobile availability. It is also the latest product to join the company's High Performance Analytics (HPA) portfolio. Formerly known as High Performance Computing, the HPA lineup is a family of analytical offerings united by an in-memory architecture for performance and speed advantages. From a technical perspective, the company's LASR Analytic Server is at the heart of Visual Analytics. It is an in-memory computation engine, which uses Hadoop as a persistence mechanism for visual analysis. That said, persistence of data is optional. We're told data can be moved without persisting it to disk or moving it into HDFS. The offering has several other core components. The data preparation piece is used to select a data source and load it in-memory. It can also load statistics to make auto charting easier, perform data joins, create calculated columns and monitor the LASR Analytic Server. The Explorer component is used for data exploration tasks, including visual analysis. It is designed to automatically generate the most appropriate graphic once users have dragged and Copyright The 451 Group 2

3 dropped data elements needing to be analyzed. Folk can also drill down to reveal underlying data driving the visualization and perform slice-and-dice OLAP-style analysis using Explorer. Those wanting to go beyond exploring data to creating reports can use the Designer component to create dashboard- style reports for the Web or mobile devices. The visualization component is based on Adobe Flex. It also includes the ability to animate graphics and will proffer an explanation of the visualization to explain a correlation if it is not readily apparent. Visual Analytics comes with a native application for Apple's ios, which serves up interactive reports on Apple's ipad. Known as the mobile BI component, it will be expanded native support for HTML 5, for example, is on the roadmap. SAS is also planning to build out advanced analytics capabilities by adding support for forecasting and segmentation, in addition to correlation and regression-based analysis available in the current release. The ability to look at existing content based on a single point in time is also in the cards. Competition Broadly speaking, SAS's main competitors are fellow enterprise-oriented behemoths IBM, SAP, Oracle and Informatica. Visual Analytics is being positioned to take aim at Oracle Exalytics, SAP HANA and SAP's new Visual Intelligence product and IBM Cognos Insight, which all provide in-memory analytics, albeit with slightly differing architectural approaches and capabilities. Informatica is the independent titan in the data management frame, where DataFlux operates. DataFlux has previously told us it saw the most front-line competition from Informatica and IBM. In fact, one of the reasons DataFlux acquired longtime consulting partner Baseline Consulting Group in March 2011 was to bolster its competitive credentials against IBM, as well as other vendors with dedicated data management consulting practices, such as Informatica and Oracle. By its own admission, Visual Analytics is also squarely aimed at taking on visual analysis offerings from Tableau Software, QlikTech International and TIBCO Spotfire. We think Spotfire is the closest because it also includes advanced analytics capabilities and has two feet in the data management world courtesy of TIBCO's real-time integration offerings. QlikTech has also recently moved to strengthen its data management capabilities by acquiring semantic-based ETL vendor, expressor software. We also think MicroStrategy Visual Insight and ADVIZOR Solutions provide competition in visual analysis. We think the move to bring DataFlux in-house is also aimed at strengthening its competitive position against other key players in the data management fray including Microsoft, Pervasive Software and Talend, which tend to operate in the departmental enterprise but are moving Copyright The 451 Group 3

4 upstream into SAS's enterprise heartland. Microsoft is also pushing harder into visual analysis with the advent of Power View in SQL Server 2012, while Pervasive is expanding into analytics with offerings such as recently introduced RushAnalyzer. SWOT Analysis Strengths Weaknesses The company continues to retain the mantle of largest privately held software vendor, is a market leader in advanced analytics and has a loyal following, particularly among statisticians. Opportunities Threats Upselling to existing accounts is the low-hanging fruit for Visual Analytics, which could also open the door to new account acquisition among business analysts, who may have been previously put off by SAS's more complex and technical tools. SAS has a few holes in its data management arsenal in the areas of data federation and real-time integration. It could also benefit from expanding beyond DataFlux's data-quality-oriented approach to MDM. Although SAS is clearly trying to up the ante in business analytics and data management, IBM, SAP and Oracle remain potent rivals on both fronts. Tableau, QlikTech and Spotfire also present stiff competition in the former arena, while Informatica, Microsoft, Pervasive and Talend are gunning hard for business in the latter. Copyright The 451 Group 4

5 Reproduced by permission of The 451 Group; This report was originally published within 451 Research s Market Insight Service. For additional information on 451 Research or to apply for trial access, go to: Copyright The 451 Group 5