SAS Institutes UK division is now part of Nortel's EMEA developer program; this association will allow both companies to collaborate closely on the development of business intelligence applications for telecom customers.

SAS the first BI vendor to join the Nortel program, provides a framework for around 25 partners to easily engage with telecom firms for development and deployment of value-added IT applications and services.

Other members have developed solutions for unified communications, mobility convergence and small- and medium-sized businesses.

SAS' Enterprise Intelligence Platform has already been certified to interoperate with Nortel's Contact Centre Manager Server.

SAS said it has already developed a new contact centre intelligence solution for mutual customers. The system is built around SAS' Customer Intelligence suite and Nortel's adaptive call-routing technologies to optimize contact centre operations.

The move coincides with the launch of a new contact Centre 6.0 launch across EMEA by Nortel. The campaign targets retail banking, healthcare and manufacturing firms.