News

SAS buys behavioral analysis engine

• By Michael W. Bucken
• November 20, 2002

SAS Institute Inc., Cary, N.C., has acquired certain technology assets of Verbind, a maker of real-time behavioral tracking and event-triggering technology. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

SAS officials said plans call for the Verbind technology to be integrated into the SAS Interaction Management toolset as part of an effort to enable organizations to determine in real time the significance of changes in customer behavior across multiple channels and when those changes will occur.

By extending the real-time interaction management capabilities of the Interaction Management system, SAS officials say the offering will over time be able to provide individualized behavior-based tracking. The added capabilities can generate even more relevant insight for more successful customer interactions, SAS officials contend.

'With the extension of our interaction management solution, SAS is taking analytical CRM to a new level of sophistication,' contends SAS CEO James Goodnight. He said he expects the combined technologies can provide 'a robust framework for organizations to leverage intelligence in real-time to drive effective decision-making throughout the enterprise.'

Lexington, Mass.-based Verbind (http://www.verbind.com) was founded in 1997 and began shipping the LiftTime real-time behavior analysis and event-triggering engine. The venture-funded firm hired former Banyan Systems CEO David Mahoney as chief executive in May 2001. The SAS acquisition follows a partnership between the two companies.

Analysts said the move made sense for SAS. 'There is a need to integrate detection with analysis and business logic to understand the customer situation and recommend the appropriate response,' said Gareth Herschel, senior research analyst at Gartner Inc., a Stamford, Conn.-based research firm. 'However, for the message to be relevant, there may only be a small window of opportunity that must be seized. The integration of behavior-tracking technology with analytic and campaign management solutions should enable the swiftest reaction between the customer event and the enterprise's response.'