Structured Methods

To bulk up against Big Blue and its 4,000 consultants, SAS has teamed up with Accenture, who is also feeling the heat from IBM, but in consulting services. Together, SAS and Accenture will spend $50 million initially to develop new analytics products for six industries. For its part, Accenture sees analytics as a big growth area and partnering with the top analytics software vendor makes sense. And to beef up its corporate image, SAS is building a new 280,000 foot executive briefing center with 690 offices, two auditoriums, and a full café to impress analytics prospects.