SAS Platform. The SAS Platform is the engine that powers our analytics technology. Open to any interface or coding language, our end-to-end platform works with all analytical tools including open source. From data to discovery to deployment, the SAS Platform handles the entire analytics life cycle, helping you operationalize analytics and get models into production faster. Cloud Analytics creates value. But to cash in, organizations must ensure resources like data, insights and analytics software are available across the enterprise. Companies want to realize efficiencies from cloud computing, lowering the costs of storage and processing. Together, these factors are making it less likely that organizations will power their analytics efforts using a fixed, on-premises infrastructure. While every organization has different needs, most still require a strategy for the cloud, and the ability to find the right combination of technologies to turn a mountain of data into useful decisions. Through a comprehensive vision for cloud solutions and deployment, SAS is aggressively evolving our technology to become cloud-native. We help organizations innovate, manage risk and create value through the SAS Cloud, which combines software, infrastructure and services that are designed and managed by SAS for optimal performance and value. And we offer cloud-deployable options that help customers run SAS in new and modern ways on almost any private, public or hybrid cloud infrastructure. SAS services are configured to address the growing interest in a "cloud first" approach to analytics, AI, data visualization and data management. Innovative deployment options now serve any business need. For example, SAS for Containers gives data science teams a flexible and efficient way to execute SAS workloads and help IT teams to be agile and take advantage of cost-efficient cloud infrastructures. And with SAS Results, a cloud-based results-as-a-service offering, customers provide the data, a specific business problem and a scope of work, and SAS delivers answers you can act on. Cloud collaborations In 2019, SAS and Red Hat announced an expansion to their existing partnership with the creation of a best-in-class hybrid cloud analytics solution, using SAS Viya on Red Hat OpenShift, the industry's most comprehensive enterprise Kubernetes platform. By offering our award-winning software and services on the SAS Cloud or third-party cloud providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google or Microsoft Azure, we give organizations the ultimate flexibility to optimize the performance and value of their analytics ecosystem. SAS doing great things with public cloud providers Handling today's modern analytic workloads in the cloud is no easy task. Heavy workloads of AI, model development and model training can really slow things down. And more and more SAS customers are exploring options for running their development and production workloads. As customers make the decision to move toward cloud-native deployments, SAS continues to develop software, services and deployment patterns that use the capabilities associated with public cloud providers like Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and Google. From establishment of Global Cloud Acceleration Centers to using advanced technologies to modernize SAS' risk, fraud, compliance and customer intelligence solutions, SAS and our partners help companies navigate their cloud journey more simply and with optimal efficiency. This includes:

Coordinated security and access management services of environments that are as safe as on-premises deployments.

Access to cloud-based data sources like AWS Redshift, Google Big Query, Snowflake and more.

Orchestration tools like OpenShift and other Kubernetes services to manage SAS in container-based environments.

Continuous innovation/continuous delivery pipelines to deploy new SAS functionality without major upgrade efforts. 17 An early return on SAS' $1 billion investment in AI came in the way of a 2019 release of SAS Viya 3.5. And in 2020, customers can even more easily get SAS technology in their hands with the launch of cloud-native SAS Viya 4.0, a more powerful, easy-to-access platform.

Artificial intelligence. The stickiness of AI speaks to its usefulness. For years, we've embedded AI technologies into solutions across the SAS portfolio. During that time, we've advanced AI technologies like machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing and forecasting and optimization. As a result, our AI continues to grow, and a rapidly increasing number of customers now rely on SAS to operationalize AI for profit and human progress. AI is in our DNA. Long before it dominated headlines, AI was an integral part of SAS software. Today we build upon decades of research to embed AI technologies like machine learning, computer vision, natural language, deep learning, and forecasting and optimization in solutions across the SAS portfolio. As a result, customers in every industry can capitalize on advancements in AI. At SAS, AI is not a standalone product but a surge of intelligence to our existing products. Much like Siri was added as a feature to a new generation of Apple devices, we inject AI capabilities into our software to help organizations boost productivity and unlock new possibilities. Automation, conversational platforms, bots and smart machines can be combined with large Artificial intelligence SAS AI Center of Excellence Expert knowledge of tools, techniques and methodologies is vital to unlocking the benefits of AI. This knowledge is scarce and difficult to acquire because the need for AI talent has outpaced industry's ability to fill it. To address this problem, SAS has created the SAS Artificial Intelligence Center of Excellence (SAS AI CoE), a group of PhD-level experts in AI, machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision, optimization and simulation, who are focused exclusively on customer implementations. The group is highly tuned to customer needs and combines a business-focused mindset with deep technical expertise to address business challenges and conduct assessments to uncover innovative opportunities that have business value. Jim Goodnight CEO SAS amounts of data to improve many technologies at home and in the workplace, from security intelligence to investment analysis. For this reason, we're investing $1 billion in AI over three years through software innovation, education, expert services and more. This commitment builds on our already strong AI foundation. And we continue to underpin these offerings with data management, visualization, deployment and decision support to help customers operationalize AI and optimize customer return on their AI projects.

One thing SAS does well is giving its employees opportunities to work on interesting and challenging projects. The software developers have the opportunity to develop cutting-edge software to be used around the world. The company makes an effort to concentrate its business in the areas of analytics, which add the most value and help organizations best analyze disparate data for decision making, creating opportunities for SAS workers to be challenged. Plus, the company removes obstacles for employees. Equipment, policies, rules, and meetings that could impede productivity are eliminated.

In addition, the company has a reputation as a pioneer when it comes to the perks it offers employees, but these perks are not given with a mentality of "offer everything but the kitchen sink." There is careful thinking and planning behind the choice of perks the company offers. SAS conducts regular employee satisfaction surveys, and any future benefits and perks offered are planned in response to the results. The company wants to eliminate stressors and anything that dissatisfies from people's lives. To keep employees healthy and fit, there are athletic fields; a full gym; a swimming pool; and tennis, basketball, and racquetball courts on campus. Plus, the company offers free on-site health care for employees, covers dependents at their fully staffed primary medical care center, and offers unlimited sick leave. The company understands that employees have a life and encourages employees to work reasonable hours and then go home to their families. In fact, a famous motto in the company is, "If you are working for more than 8 hours, you are just adding bugs." SAS is truly one of the industry leaders in leveraging its treatment of people for continued business success.

Does the company appear to have more of a fixed or variable cost structure? Provide specific points to justify your conclusion.