SAS has seen a surge of business in the third quarter that puts the company on track for a 5 percent revenue gain this year.
 
Jim Goodnight, the co-founder and CEO of the Cary business-analytic software company, told the Reuters news service that global demand has picked up for the company's data-mining products, especially in Latin America and Asia.
 
Goodnight talked to Reuters during a break Friday at a meeting in Chicago of the Business Council. Goodnight is a member of the association, which includes more than 100 CEOs at major corporations.
 
SAS was founded three decades ago and has made a profit in every year of its existence, weathering the recession while other high-tech companies downsized or capsized. Last year, the company generated $2.31 billion in revenue, up 2.2 percent from the year before.