Interested to hear if anyone who's still at SAS or attended Innovate, has any thoughts or comments on the event.
Any sense that SAS may be reinventing itself, or did it just confirm the general consensus around here that the ship is sinking and sinking fast?
And did JG appear, or was he just on a pre-recorded video?
Innovate is a hot air fest of an irrelevant company trying to stay relevant. All you need is a ppt idea and a solution.
We don't really know if they'll go public, why they'd go public or say they'd go public. Raising capital to invest in new opportunities, to "cash out", attract other buyers, have more press coverage, be able to divide assets more easily to pass on, who knows. We don't know how they would do it if they ever did it, either. They could list a lower percentage of shares, make class A, class B, etc. Do they care if/when the stock price tanks? If there is a hostile takeover? Presumably, investment bankers would help them consider many scenarios and factors nobody commenting here would know about, understand, or have experienced.
I"PO (minority of shares) may be a lot more attractive to the owners"
If you are implying that JG and JS control majority of shares, that is interesting. Minority share might be an uphill proposition given a decade of flat revenue. That is not hugely confidence building.
Good gig for majority however!
no buyer, or possibly no motivated seller? or both? IPO (minority of shares) may be a lot more attractive to the owners, we don't really know.
“Though necessary to remain relevant in modern analytics, integration with R and Python are likely a very small part of SAS’ “bread and butter” revenue.”
@16h+1jv97k35t is right. Modern data analysts code in R and Python, so SAS must integrate with those languages. But that’s a checkbox on the features list, nothing more.
Any buyer of SAS will be solely interested in its $3B ARR — very little of which depends on R or Python.
That post must have really hit a nerve. As a token of contrition, I offer you this:
https://thetvbrick.com/buy-now/
Now you can have your TV brick to throw at the screen whenever you read these posts.
If you ask nicely, I'm sure one of the kids in the Art Department, which is safe, will be happy to draw you a new graphic and rebrand it as "The Layoff Brick".
"There are complete language implementations like the DATA STEP, Macro, IML, SCL, FCMP, etc.. Longterm SAS customers have millions of lines of program code implemented in these languages and/or used to customize/extend other SAS products. This is why SAS will continue to have a legacy revenue stream for the foreseeable future."
The above is the "main course" of value to whoever acquire SAS so keep the "main course" together and everything else gets unbundled and sold separately asap. That is the best recipe for fetching optimal value while also providing a defined roadmap of head count reduction . For example sell JMP separately and poof, just like that, headcount is reduced by 500. Same for Fraud etc. Save the "main course" to sell last. By that time all the extraneous products, headcount and expenses associated have been dissolved. In other words do the up front work that a private equity does not have the time or interest to perform.
It has become clear that the present strategy of keeping it all bundled for one sale is not juicy enough to attract a buyer. Five plus years and no sale has proved that.
[As I get more familiar with programming, the whole SAS thing looks wrapper-ware, covering up something lifted from open source. "We've got your Python! We've got your R! All in our nice wrapper! Tools made by Developers, for Developers!"]
… in spite of SAS’ integration with open source languages like R and Python, the rest of your observation is very inaccurate. The majority of code within current SAS products was designed and written from scratch by SAS developers over the past 40+ years. There are millions of lines of very complex C alone, including painstakingly hand optimized libraries supporting most DSA patterns and a huge variety of numerical and analytical methods shared across internal SAS components. There are millions of lines of Java, JS, and Go as well.
There are complete language implementations like the DATA STEP, Macro, IML, SCL, FCMP, etc.. Longterm SAS customers have millions of lines of program code implemented in these languages and/or used to customize/extend other SAS products. This is why SAS will continue to have a legacy revenue stream for the foreseeable future. Though necessary to remain relevant in modern analytics, integration with R and Python are likely a very small part of SAS’ “bread and butter” revenue.
SAS has suffered not just from outdated technology and bloated pricing, but from a leadership culture that systematically failed to retain and empower its best people. Over the past decade, countless talented engineers, data scientists, and domain experts either walked away or were pushed out due to a stifling internal structure and a lack of visionary leadership. Rather than cultivating innovation from within, SAS leadership let go of individuals who could have modernized the company from the inside — opting instead to centralize control around legacy thinkers who prioritized protecting the status quo over adapting to reality.
This short-sighted strategy left the company increasingly run by people more concerned with politics and appearances than technical excellence or forward momentum. As a result, SAS became a place where mediocrity was preserved and fresh ideas were either ignored or driven out. While other analytics companies built open ecosystems and embraced agile development, SAS doubled down on insularity and bureaucracy — all while bleeding the very talent it desperately needed to remain competitive. The people who could have saved SAS were there, but the company’s own leadership made it impossible for them to succeed.
Many years ago, a company produced a foam brick for folks to throw at their TV's. Men were breaking the family sets with real bricks while yelling at football games.
I longed for the foam brick when I started watching Innovate 2025, especially the concocted bit about where the lowly Developer runs into the VP, eyeliner and all.
"Dude! You have to fix this!" I imagined them colliding post-flush after exiting their stalls in R or S or wherever they sit now. How contrite. Like exclamations of problems to the higher-ups ever motivated them to fix anything. As I stepped closer to the TV, I paused the video to examine the screen. It's been a few years...I can't say it looked like progress.
As I get more familiar with programming, the whole SAS thing looks wrapper-ware, covering up something lifted from open source. "We've got your Python! We've got your R! All in our nice wrapper! Tools made by Developers, for Developers!"
Its the same as its always been. Once you learn how to program in the open-source tools, it becomes more difficult to take SAS seriously. At least the kids in the Art Department, which is safe, are still safe.
More or less attendance aside, I feel sorry for SAS customers. 99% of them are in the third world of AI/ML, all of them sitting on ton of data which are fertile ground for AI/ML, yet they have no better vendor to turn to seek help from than SAS which is also in the third world of AI/ML. This is the last chance of SAS' turnaround yet it's already wasted with current crop (lack of) leadership and talents.
"fiction that exporting country pays tariffs"
They do if they want to remain competitive now, don't they.
No, now it's the importing company pays the tariffs so the consumer does not have to:
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/17/trump-tells-walmart-to-eat-the-tariffs.html
Wall Street must love this.
I’m very glad to hear that SAS Innovate was well-attended. I’ve been retired for 3 1/2 years now but I still want SAS to do well.
interested to hear of any AI-related application announcements.
This year's Innovate had the most attendees post-pandemic. The venue wasn't necessarily smaller than years past, just different. It was more active and you could feel the excitement and curiosity of attendees. And when it came to Brene Brown, people were running in to the room to get front row seats. I don't get why people come on here to bash and tear apart every single thing this company does and turn it into a negative. Innovate was a great event for us. That should be celebrated versus trying to find something to hate on about it and write ridiculous lists of why you dislike the company and wish it to fail.
Let’s try to get this thread back on track…I don’t know if this years venue was bigger or smaller than last year. I can say with certainty that this year there were more rooms for hands on workshops and demos, and they were fuller than last year.
There is never a down or stormy day at SAS.
@gk+1jv97k35t
"fiction that exporting country pays tariffs"
They do if they want to remain competitive now, don't they.
“ It just sounds so improbable...like the exporting country paying the tariffs improbable.”
Good point. When you compare it to the fiction that exporting country pays tariffs it is crystal clear that SAS used small venues to hide the fact that it was poorly attended.
Thanks for bringing such clarity to the “issue”.
It just sounds so improbable...like the exporting country paying the tariffs improbable.
“ Did they book a smaller venu to make it look more full? Or are people actually excited about something SAS is making?”
There is the conspiracy theory. Was waiting for it.
Absolute attendance numbers were higher than the past couple years. It felt very busy. Word on the street is that attendance actually would have been higher but a number of federal customers cancelled due to everything going on with the government.
Did they book a smaller venu to make it look more full? Or are people actually excited about something SAS is making?
Dr. G was there, he just didn't present during the general sessions. He attened a number of activities for customers/awards and media.
Monday all sessions were packed. Opening session was standing room only.
Other general sessions were quite full.
I was there. It was the most well-attended event in several years. Overall, customers were engaged and seemed interested in what’s coming down the pipeline (of course, unhappy customers probably didn’t attend). Most hands on sessions/demos were completely full. I don’t believe JG was there.
Disappointing to hear but not too surprising. Tell me if any of this is wrong:
No big surprise that Innovate is lowly attended. Hate it that things for SAS seem so adrift.
The only photos and videos I've seen on LinkedIn had very few people in them and lots of empty seats...sad.