Date:         Thu, 6 Mar 2008 14:01:50 -0800
Reply-To:     Chris T <chris.tinnon@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Chris T <chris.tinnon@GMAIL.COM>
Organization: http://groups.google.com
Subject:      Rant: I really hate the SAS pricing structure
Comments: To: sas-l@uga.edu
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

My company, which has a total of 4 SAS users, has been running the
same single processor, single core server for a few years.  It's slow,
it sucks, and our jobs take forever.  I've never had to get a quote
for SAS outside of a desktop user environment and was absolutely
shocked to find the cost.  If I spent $8K on a nice new server, dual
processor dual core, I'm looking at $170,000 just for the upgrade
license, with a further $56,000 per year renewal, compared with the
current $11,000.

To a degree, I understand why the charge what they do.  It would be
ridiculous for a company to charge the same for a company that runs
one server and one that runs a grid of 100.  Or one that has 4 user
compared to 400.  But It's just a simple hardware upgrade!!  I'm
upgrading to more reliable, faster, current hardware.  Yes, give me
the whole line about "value added software" blah blah blah.  I have
your software, I pay for it now, and I get value from it.  What I
would get more value from is new hardware, new hardware that you had
no involvement in creating, you don't sell, and shouldn't be able to
profit from.

SAS, I hate this.  I hate that you're forcing me to remain on such
substandard hardware because we can't incur this cost.  I hate that
you think because we spend money on a new server you deserve the right
to charge us more.  Your software isn't the one giving us better and
faster results.  It's the hardware.

..and people thought Microsoft's business practices were bad.

/rant