Recently I attended a launch ceremony for the SAS 9 Intelligence Platform, which SAS describes as the most important software release in the company's 28-year history. Don't be embarrassed if you aren't familiar with SAS, or if you can't quite remember what SAS does.

Here's the quick drill: SAS in the world's largest privately owned software company. More important, SAS software is the analytic engine running under practically every large-scale business intelligence system. With 99 percent penetration of the Fortune 1000, it's fair to call SAS the "Intel Inside" of enterprise BI.

So why haven't you heard of SAS? Unless you're a "quant" - the endearing self-descriptive term used by people with advanced degrees in statistics - you've probably never worked directly with a SAS application.

SAS 9, however, will rock your world. SAS 9 brings industrial-strength analytic power directly to your desktop, in user-friendly flavors designed especially for your vertical. Imagine having a dozen Einsteins huddled around your desktop, eagerly waiting for you to ask them a really tough question - you get the picture.

SAS 9 empowers you and every other happy-go-lucky manager in your organization to crunch numbers with same skill as those ultra-serious quants grinding their grist down in the data warehouse. It empowers regular people like you and me to leverage the same behemoth calculating processes used to forecast the weather, analyze the results of clinical drug trials, predict fluctuations in world currency markets, monitor the quality of microchips and plot the distribution of stars in the galaxy.

In the same way that ATMs and TV remotes dragged our parents or older siblings kicking and screaming into the digital universe, SAS 9 heaves us boldly into a new relationship with data. Buckle up, the ride is just beginning.

Is SAS ready for fame?

SAS 9 thrusts SAS into the public spotlight. Fame can be a blessing or a curse, depending on how well you handle it. Compared to other software vendors, SAS practically shuns publicity. Dr. Jim Goodnight, the legendary co-founder CEO of SAS, is an imposing presence, both physically and intellectually. Imagine a terse, macho version of Bill Gates with a North Carolina accent. Dr. Goodnight's idea of a good time is writing code with his R&D group on Saturday mornings.

Is Goodnight the right guy to lead SAS to fame and glory? Yes. Here's why: To a far greater degree than any other software titan, Jim Goodnight is the living embodiment of the SAS brand. In marketing-speak, Goodnight is the brand soul of SAS.

Flying below radar

Unlike traditional brands, the SAS brand represents a contract between SAS and an extended family of SAS users, SAS employees and SAS neighbors.

While other software giants spend zillions on sexy new brand awareness campaigns, SAS builds its brand on the strength of human relationships.

Whenever someone compiles an annual "best companies to work for" list, SAS always makes it into the top five. SAS spends lavishly on its employees.

SAS spends lavishly on R&D. SAS spends lavishly on its customers, throwing annual user group meetings. And SAS spends lavishly on the community around its 900-acre campus headquarters in Cary, North Carolina. With relationships like those, who needs billboards on Times Square or TV commercials?

Goodnight's homespun values are written into every line of SAS software. When you launch a SAS application, you feel Goodnight's presence. You really can't say that about other business software products.

If SAS were trying to build brand awareness on a subconscious level, they could sit back and congratulate themselves. But it takes more than subconscious feelings to close multi-million dollar sales of enterprise software.

The challenge for SAS is converting Goodnight's presence into brand awareness on a conscious level. That's where SAS hopes SAS 9 will prove its value as a brand builder.

If SAS 9 proves as usable, useful and indispensable as Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and Word, it will become ubiquitous - a true killer app. When that happens, watch for a painful shakeout in the BI vendor space.

I'm betting on Goodnight's team to succeed. SAS is one of the few companies whose tagline, "The Power to Know," faithfully mirrors its brand strategy.

For millions of managers and executives who never had access to predictive analytics or forecasting software, SAS 9 could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

In the next column, I'll take a look at the battle of brands brewing in the financial services sector. Until then, may the brand be with you!