Date: Sun, 22 Nov 2009 14:59:16 -0500
Reply-To: Nathaniel Wooding <nathaniel.wooding@DOM.COM>
Sender: "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From: Nathaniel Wooding <nathaniel.wooding@DOM.COM>
Subject: Re: New York Times Article About SAS Institute and Changing
Marketplace for Its Products
In-Reply-To: <fe22e557-f74e-4a6c-a870-20e1f0735586@v25g2000yqk.googlegroups.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Art
I will quibble with you on one point in your rant. While I don't have SAS Tech Support on speed dial, I do call them every so often and recognize a voice before they finish identifying themselves. The fact that anyone with a valid site id can call them, be immediately answered by a triage person -- not a English speaking computer -- and then be sent to another human without having to listen to a couple hours of music says a whole lot. I will readily grant that the first person who fields my call may not be the one to answer my questions but sometimes the source of the problem is not always apparent and sometimes I don't couch my complaint as well as I should.
Overall, I have never found fault with the staff there. That does not mean that they will always get a really obscure question right but some situations take a while to figure out.
Nat
-----Original Message-----
From: SAS(r) Discussion [mailto:SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Arthur Tabachneck
Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2009 10:05 AM
To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: New York Times Article About SAS Institute and Changing Marketplace for Its Products
Ken,
I'm not at all insulted that SAS treats its employees so well. In
fact, it is probably among the many reasons why it has been so
successful over the years and able to provide us with what we want.
However, I totally agree that SAS has had its weak points over the
years, and documentation has always been one of them. For many years,
I'd refer to the original SPSS documentation in order to determine
what I'd like to do in SAS. Unfortunately, they too, changed scope
and my preference for documentation has switched to the web. And, my
limited experience with the SAS technical support staff leads me to
think that JG hasn't put as much into support (including
documentation) as he has in product development and marketing.
Is SAS too expensive? Absolutely! But I think the root of the
question of how it has become so overpriced is where the real answer
lies. Many of us went with SPSS and SAS because it gave us a way to
do what we needed. At the time, we didn't realize that we were also
avoiding the extremely stuctured and limiting aspects of all of the IT
departments that were also evolving at the same time.
But, just as those departments were beginning to be able to exercise
significant control over processing, SPSS and SAS came out with
Window's versions, which enabled us to maintain our processing
independence.
What I have witnessed over the last 5 to 10 years or so, though, is
that SAS has been going in a direction that makes those of us who use
SAS to be more dependent on our IT departments. Unfortunately, they
typically don't understand the product, thus many of the benefits end
up getting lost in the translation.
And, even worse, since those departments are used to lavishing in much
larger budgets than those of us who use SAS, the products that SAS has
available end up being targeted to those markets and at the price tags
those markets expect.
I sincerely think that SAS Institute would greatly benefit from a
rethinking of its basic strategy. Yes, they've been doing that a
little more in recent years (the interest in R being an example) but,
even there, only scratching the surface.
---End of Rant--
Art
--------------
On Nov 22, 12:33 am, "Kenneth M. Lin" <kenneth_m_...@sbcglobal.net>
wrote:
> "Sierra Information Services" <sfbay0...@aol.com> wrote in messagenews:ea74bcd4-33b5-4300-90e2-021fa3c0e2e8@z10g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
>
> > Very interesting article about SAS...includes quotes from Rick
> > Langston, whom many of us know from his many presentations at events
> > for SAS users over the years.
>
> > The article's title is "At a Software Paradise, the Good Life is Under
> > Siege" and was published on 21 Nov 2009.
>
> >http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/business/22sas.html?_r=1&hpw
>
> > Andrew Karp
> > Sierra Information Services
> > httpL//www.sierrainformation.com
>
> Considering how expensive SAS software licenses are, I am pretty insulted
> that SAS treats its own employees so well. Their manuals are borderline
> unreadable and most sections haven't been updated in decades!
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