Date:         Fri, 9 Apr 1999 19:58:42 +1000
Reply-To:     Tim Churches <tchur@bigpond.com>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>
From:         Tim Churches <tchur@BIGPOND.COM>
Subject:      Re: "SASR Integration Technologies Overview"
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Sheryll Roberson writes:
> To get a sneak preview of "SAS(r) Integration Technologies Overview",
being
> presented in the Emerging Tecnologies Session at SUGI 24, on Monday, 8:00
> AM, click on the url below.
>  http://www.sas.com/rnd/itech/
> Sheryll Roberson
> USQA-Houston
> (713) 354-7168 (office)
> (713) 624-5401 (fax)
> e-mail:  robersonS@aetna.com
 
Hmmm, It all looks very promising and appears to be exactly what SI needs to
do to keep SAS viable in an increasingly open and standards-driven computing
world. However I noticed that the above Web page starts with the sentence:
 
"SAS Integration Technologies is a new and exciting product coming to SAS
Software, Version 8. "
 
Maybe this is just an unfortunate use of language but it does seem to
suggest that these goodies will only be available to those who are prepared
to stump up with yet more licensing dollars, when in fact what is being
described should surely be regarded as an upgrade to the core parts of SAS
to bring it in to the third millenium. It seems that every new feature in
SAS ends up as a new product these days. Pretty soon they'll be asking us to
license SAS/LICENSE just so we can update our setinits.... Just to spell it
out: every new SAS feature which appears as a new product rather than as an
upgrade to existing products reduces the value of existing SAS licenses,
since these are paid in the expectation that they cover improvements in and
expansions to the functionality of currently licensed products.
 
Tim Churches