Earlier this week SAS announced its latest products and service with an emphasis on driving analytics to the “cloud” and to more devices across corporate networks through the Internet of Things. Here’s a look at the SAS view of IoT.

Jason Mann, director of Product Management for Internet of Things, answers questions from WTW:

  • Do customers have to ramp up their own PC/server power to make real-time use of such amounts of data – or does this service run through the SAS cloud – or both?

SAS makes software available to customers through the SAS Cloud, public cloud or on-premise. The configuration depends on the use case and customer preferences. 

  • Does SAS see incorporation of IoT and customer premise data as provided in Customer Intelligence being blended to provide an even more comprehensive view of customers/potential buyers? Is this the next frontier of IoT?

Absolutely. Our view is that to achieve maximum value from IoT data (a.k.a. sensor data), one should combine it with other contextual data. In the case of the ‘connected customer,’ the combination of IoT data and customer intelligence offer both a more comprehensive view of the customer and extends omnichannel marketing to serve the customer in the moment – even in-store or other physical places.

  • How do customers as described in the release monitor all that data? Has the manufacture cited, for example, set up a team and/or hub of machines to monitor the IoT data? How do they deal with it all?

IoT data grows fast. SAS is helping companies gain insights from the data and instead of moving all data to the models, we are moving the models to the data . . . in the data stream. This can be in the data center and on the edge, on smart devices.  

Bio: Jason Mann

Director of Product Management for Internet of Things

SAS

Jason Mann focuses on applying analytics to the challenge presented by the flood of data created by the connected devices permeating business today. In addition to IoT, Jason directs product development for Manufacturing, Energy, Retail and Health and Lifesciences solutions at SAS.

Before SAS, Jason spent 10 years working with Nortel Networks. His management experience and areas of expertise include enterprise resource planning (ERP), manufacturing, demand management and supply chain operations.

Mann earned a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina.