Foxwoods Plays A Strong Hand With SAS And Netezza

Netezza Data Warehouse Appliance Running SAS® Customer Intelligence Software Helps North America’s Largest Casino Better Understand Its 40,000 Daily Customers

Marlborough, Mass. – Foxwoods Resort Casino has chosen the Netezza Performance Server® (NPS®) data warehouse appliance and SAS® Marketing Automation software to analyze in more detail its gaming and hotel data to better serve its 40,000 daily customers.

In conjunction with Netezza, Foxwoods is expanding its data mart to collect more detailed gaming data and customer demographics for use in micro-targeted marketing campaigns, special offers and comps. With SAS, the leader in business analytics, Foxwoods will be able to analyze this data more closely and as a result will be able to make more precise business decisions that will enhance the company’s marketing strategies.

The application of the Netezza data warehouse appliance in conjunction with SAS Marketing Automation will allow the capture of highly detailed data from a multitude of departments within the casino — including the hotel, spa, retail outlets, call center, ticketing, food and beverage, and the newly opened MGM Grand at Foxwoods — to gain a more sophisticated and detailed profile of their clients.

"When you’re welcoming 40,000 people every day, developing strong customer relationships is crucial to persuading them to come back" said Michael Kutia, director of hospitality systems at Foxwoods. "Netezza’s extreme speed, coupled with SAS Marketing Automation, enables Foxwoods to get to know our customers like never before. The insights gained from SAS and provided by our Netezza appliance let us alert customers of special offers that they’ll care about and make them feel a part of the Foxwoods family"

The power, flexibility and simplicity of the Netezza and SAS combination will allow Foxwoods’ support staff to easily deploy and maintain the casino’s data warehouse appliance, while performing critical analysis on that data. Netezza’s scalability will give Foxwoods a platform that can easily grow as the casino adds more data sources and continues to capture increasingly detailed data. Meanwhile, SAS Marketing Automation enables Foxwoods to turn disparate, disorganized customer data into profitable marketing campaigns.

"We are pleased that Foxwoods Resort Casino has chosen Netezza and SAS for its customer data analysis" said Matt Rollender, director of strategic alliances, Netezza. "Instead of rolling the dice with an unproven solution, Foxwoods chose Netezza, the global data warehouse appliance leader, to get a handle on its customer data and selected SAS to turn that information into action"

Scott VanValkenburgh, director for technology alliances at SAS, agreed. "Support for Netezza addresses demand for our SAS Customer Intelligence solutions to be available on that platform" he said. "Together, we are enabling our mutual customers, like Foxwoods, to maintain an integrated customer view and manage their IT infrastructure in real time by using all of their data when they need it"

The Netezza data warehouse appliance is built specifically to analyze terabytes of detailed data significantly faster than existing data warehouse options, at a much lower total cost of ownership. It stores, filters and processes terabytes of records within a single unit, analyzing only the relevant information for each query. Netezza has placed the CPU power next to the data, allowing its appliances to speed through processes that would occupy most data warehouse systems for hours or even days, thereby enabling dramatic increases in productivity across organizations like Foxwoods.

SAS Marketing Automation is part of a comprehensive suite of SAS Customer Intelligence solutions. It enables leading organizations like Foxwoods to improve marketing effectiveness and their bottom lines by making it easier to manage and execute sophisticated, timely, personalized customer communication strategies. Only SAS Marketing Automation provides comprehensive data management, campaign management and advanced customer analytics in one integrated, easy-to-use solution.

About Foxwoods Resort Casino

North America’s largest casino, Foxwoods Resort Casino® is located in the rolling hills of southeastern Connecticut and is easily accessible from Boston, New York, Hartford and Providence. Owned by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, Foxwoods features six casinos with more than 7,200 slots, 380 table games, the only WPT World Poker Room(TM) in New England, High Stakes Bingo and Ultimate Race Book. There are 1,416 guest rooms and suites in three hotels, more than 30 restaurants, a luxurious spa, more than 50,000 square feet of premium meeting and event space, 24 retail shops and five entertainment venues, including the 1,400-seat Fox Theatre. Conveniently located adjacent to Foxwoods is Lake of Isles(TM), featuring two, 18-hole championship golf courses designed by Rees Jones and a state-of-the-art Golf Academy.

In May 2008, the $700 million MGM Grand at Foxwoods® debuted, adding 825 luxurious guest rooms, 115,000 square feet of meeting space, a 4,000-seat MGM Grand Theater, 21,000-square-foot spa as well as more dining, retail and gaming facilities, bolstering Foxwoods’ preeminence as the East Coast’s ultimate casino resort destination. Foxwoods supports responsible gaming, and plays a leadership role in the Connecticut Council of Problem Gambling, of which it was a founding entity. For more information, call 1-800-FOXWOODS, 1-866-MGM-0500 or visit www.foxwoods.com or www.mgmatfoxwoods.com.

About Netezza Corporation (NYSE Arca: NZ)

Netezza is the global leader in data warehouse and analytic appliances that dramatically simplify high-performance analytics for business users across the extended enterprise, delivering significant competitive and operational advantage in today’s information-intensive marketplaces. The Netezza family of appliances brings appliance simplicity to a broad range of complex data warehouse and analytic challenges. Customers who have realized the benefits of Netezza appliances include Ahold, Amazon.com, CNET Networks, Debenhams, Department of Veterans Affairs, Epsilon, Nationwide, Neiman Marcus, Orange UK, Premier, Inc., Ross Stores, Ryder System, Inc., The Carphone Warehouse and Virgin Media. Based in Marlborough, Mass., Netezza has offices in Washington, DC, the United Kingdom and Asia Pacific. For more information about Netezza, please visit www.netezza.com.

Netezza Performance Server, NPS and streaming analytic are trademarks of Netezza Corporation. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.