At a Software Powerhouse, the Good Life Is Under Siege
1–10 of 23 posts
Re: At a Software Powerhouse, the Good Life Is Under Siege
#2I think the article misses an important point: SAS is a generational thing, and the influence of generation that cut their teeth on SAS and VAX mainframes in the 1980s is waning. There's a reason why the SAS ads you see in the airports are all targeted at management--because that's where all those people work now. And soon they will retire.
They would never dare advertise to the poor analysts who are forced to actually use SAS to get work done, because we know what turd it is. I do not think I exaggerate when I say that not a single up-and-coming statistician in this day and age chooses expensive, obfuscated SAS as the language with which to hone their skills. It is truly the worst language I have ever had the misfortune of being forced to learn (by an old professor, who knew SAS and refused to learn anything else.) Somebody back me up here.
There are a few areas where SAS is unrivaled--it can crunch huge data and exploit parallel processing better than other off-the-shelf solutions. That feature gap will close over time as R and other open tools rise in popularity. And there will always be a niche market for SAS programmers because many companies have huge libraries of SAS code which run their credit card/oil rig/whatever analytics, and starting from scratch is not an option. But SAS's dominance is unquestionably on the decline, and a lot of it has to do with the fact that next generation a) isn't being trained on SAS and b) doesn't want to be.
Re: At a Software Powerhouse, the Good Life Is Under Siege
#3I really enjoyed that article. The active M&A in business intelligence software companies shows just how big Big Data is for business, and how big the market is for new startups to tailor specific techniques for niche industries. However, now that the secret is out, its going to be more difficult to prove that your secret sauce is superior than your competitors. The winners in this market will be those who can deliver results fast, and be nimble enough to account for the elastic nature of Big datasets.
Re: At a Software Powerhouse, the Good Life Is Under Siege
#4single page please http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/business/22sas.html?_r=2&#...
Re: At a Software Powerhouse, the Good Life Is Under Siege
#5I think the article misses an important point: SAS is a generational thing, and the influence of generation that cut their teeth on SAS and VAX mainframes in the 1980s is waning. There's a reason why the SAS ads you see in the airports are all targeted at management--because that's where all those people work now. And soon they will retire. They would never dare advertise to the poor analysts who are forced to actual…
I haven't seen SAS code before. I'll take your word that it's ugly. However, if SAS can adopt new standards, I hardly see them waning. Companies will always be thirsty for better ways to understand their customers, and now with the ease at which new internet companies are started and more people become connected, the demand for those services is only going to increase. If SAS can continue to outperform by investing in R&D and adopt new ways to bring in fresh talent (ie use more open-source tools) to keep them ahead of the curve, they'll do just fine.
Re: At a Software Powerhouse, the Good Life Is Under Siege
#6I think the article misses an important point: SAS is a generational thing, and the influence of generation that cut their teeth on SAS and VAX mainframes in the 1980s is waning. There's a reason why the SAS ads you see in the airports are all targeted at management--because that's where all those people work now. And soon they will retire. They would never dare advertise to the poor analysts who are forced to actual…
> The company shifted course earlier this year and modified its software so programs written with R work seamlessly with SAS technology.
I agree that getting them while they're young - like McDonalds - is an effective strategy, but if you can swap out the language for another front-end, does it matter? (it's a big "if").
Re: At a Software Powerhouse, the Good Life Is Under Siege
#7One thing that's not mention prominently in the article is that while SAS provides many perks to its employees, it actually has a history of paying salaries significantly below industry standards.
Re: At a Software Powerhouse, the Good Life Is Under Siege
#8I think the article misses an important point: SAS is a generational thing, and the influence of generation that cut their teeth on SAS and VAX mainframes in the 1980s is waning. There's a reason why the SAS ads you see in the airports are all targeted at management--because that's where all those people work now. And soon they will retire. They would never dare advertise to the poor analysts who are forced to actual…
"There are a few areas where SAS is unrivaled--it can crunch huge data and exploit parallel processing better than other off-the-shelf solutions."
Those also seem, to me, the only areas where you can justify significant profit margins for your product.
Re: At a Software Powerhouse, the Good Life Is Under Siege
#9One thing that's not mention prominently in the article is that while SAS provides many perks to its employees, it actually has a history of paying salaries significantly below industry standards.
could that be a result of a lower cost of living in cary, north carolina?
Re: At a Software Powerhouse, the Good Life Is Under Siege
#10I really enjoyed that article. The active M&A in business intelligence software companies shows just how big Big Data is for business, and how big the market is for new startups to tailor specific techniques for niche industries. However, now that the secret is out, its going to be more difficult to prove that your secret sauce is superior than your competitors. The winners in this market will be those who can delive…
You'll probably need quite a bit of money backing your startup if you're going to be handling enterprise data to let them know you'll be around years from now. Enterprises need that assurance before they'll even deal with you.