JIM GOODNIGHT: Welcome, Satya Thanks
for joining me to announce the next phase
in our exciting strategic partnership.
The launch of our new release of SAS Viya, our cloud native
AI analytic data management platform.
This release is optimized for Azure
and it takes advantage of many deep integrations
with Azure services.
And we've already seen early success across industries
from customers like Hanes brand and Qualitas Insurance Company.
SATYA NADELLA: Thank you so much, Jim.
It's really a pleasure to be with you and congratulations
on the launch of SAS Viya.
We're very excited, obviously, to partner with you
and to bring the value that the two companies can
bring to our customers.
JIM GOODNIGHT: Well Satya, you've
often said that every company is a digital company.
How about elaborating on what you mean by that?
SATYA NADELLA: No, absolutely.
Jim, if you look at it, every industry
is fundamentally being transformed.
We're in the middle of a pandemic.
If you look at healthcare, we've talked about telemedicine
for decades except now going forward,
I don't think any outpatient visit will start without first
an AI triage tool.
And then, a telemedicine visit.
And then, perhaps you show up as an outpatient.
So, I think in retail, curbside pickup,
or in manufacturing, essentially lights-out digital
manufacturing using things like digital twins.
So, every industry fundamentally is
becoming more resilient to create business continuity,
as well as being transformed by digital technology.
And the key attribute, Jim, that I find very interesting
is what I describe as tech intensity.
It's both adopting the best in class technology, SAS
technology or Microsoft technology.
These are very important.
And then, you also want to build proprietary technology
as a company.
So, that combination, I think is what
we are seeing as every company becomes a digital company.
And so maybe, Jim, I can turn this to you.
I know one of the things that you've
been at the forefront of innovating here
and this new Viya product is doing fantastic,
cloud native optimizations.
Maybe you want to talk a little bit about the technology there
and what it entails, what excites you about it.
JIM GOODNIGHT: Well, sure.
The latest release is built to run seamlessly
with Azure Services.
This makes it easier to design, run, and manage
analytics and data processing workloads in the cloud.
I'm proud of the capabilities that we're bringing together,
including container orchestration, managed
by Azure Kubernetes, IT administration with Microsoft
tools, and seamless access to the Azure data estate.
These capabilities will eliminate the complexity
and last mile barriers to deploying analytics
across the enterprise.
There's a great story with SAS and Azure Synapse.
SAS models work inside Synapse.
SAS can run as an embedded process inside the database,
allowing users to run SAS models and other models
closer to the data.
This combination provides data scientists
with more options for methods, governance, and scalability,
and brings a unified analytic platform not seen
anywhere else in the market.
SATYA NADELLA: Listening to you even talk about how intense
and how deeply cloud native made SAS is just remarkable.
And when you put this, in say, customers' hands, what
are some of the outcomes of the transformation
you're seeing in terms of customer benefits of all
this great innovation?
JIM GOODNIGHT: Well, this integration
yield significant benefits to IT departments, data scientists,
business analysts, and developers.
By combining what we both do best,
we are providing more options and flexibility
for our joint customers.
We are running analytics for the largest organizations
in the world, many of whom are also significant Microsoft
customers.
We are better together.
We want to make sure that SAS is seamlessly
available throughout the Microsoft ecosystem
and the scale and accessibility of Azure
is a benefit for our customers who are moving to the cloud.
We can add value to customers so they
can extend their investment in SAS
while using new tools like Power Platform and Dynamics 365.
The ultimate benefit of all of this
will be improved customer experience
and trusted decisions.
What's got you excited about the future
that we're empowering together through our partnership
and solutions like Viya on Azure?
SATYA NADELLA: There's a lot to be
excited about when you see what Viya on Azure can accomplish.
The 2020 and this pandemic has really
changed customer expectations, Jim.
Every customer, I think, is now going
to expect a new level of personalized experience, how
they interact with any brand or any organization.
And the same thing is happening even
with employees inside the company.
So I think how an organization harnesses
data to create increasing levels of predictive and analytical
power is going to be directly related to firm performance.
And that's, I think, what's exciting.
And that's why I think this partnership of ours,
bringing analytics, AI, cloud together
to help customers accelerate their transformations is
hugely important.
Making data accessible across the organization, Jim,
which you've talked about and thought about a lot,
domain experts, the C-suite, the developers, the analysts,
the frontline workers, as well as the knowledge workers
are going to be very important.
And that's why I think data governance is huge,
and this is where some of the work you've
done, both on the analytics side and on the data governance
side, I think, is a very important timely set
of innovations for every organization going forward.
So, I'm really looking forward to this technology
in the customer's hands as they rapidly transform
their industry through data.
JIM GOODNIGHT: Satya, thank you again
for joining me today for this rollout.
SATYA NADELLA: Thank you so much and congratulations
to you and your team.
And we're really honored to be partnered with you deeply
on this.