(Cary, N.C.) The National Center for Database Marketing (NCDM) Conference, co-produced by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) has honored SAS and EarthLink with a Gold 2009 NCDM Database Excellence Award in the Analytics & Modeling Applications category. SAS is the leader in business analytics software and services. EarthLink, Inc. is an award winning Internet service provider, offering Internet access and related value-added services across the United States.

The NCDM awards honor organizations that are executing innovative analytics, database marketing strategies and techniques, or using existing knowledge in creative ways to improve the quality of their marketing initiatives, resulting in a measurable and increased value to the bottom line.

Earthlink uses SAS predictive modeling and segmentation to identify the optimal methodologies to implement customer-loyalty engagement programs and to improve customer retention. “This is an exciting team award demonstrating the strong partnership and collaboration between EarthLink and SAS,” said Stuart Roesel, Director of Churn Management and Customer Retention at EarthLink. “We’re very proud of this accomplishment, which highlights our strong focus on pleasing our customers.”

SAS® Customer Intelligence solutions enable companies to deepen customer insights, choreograph customer interactions and continuously improve the organization’s marketing performance. Customers worldwide using SAS to support customer initiatives include DeutschlandCard, First Citizens Bank, Grupo Santander, Staples, U.S. Bank, Vodafone Australia and Wolters Kluwer.

SAS is the leader in business analytics software and services, and the largest independent vendor in the business intelligence market. Through innovative solutions delivered within an integrated framework, SAS helps customers at more than 45,000 sites improve performance and deliver value by making better decisions faster. Since 1976 SAS has been giving customers around the world THE POWER TO KNOW®.