Many people keep commenting how the company is failing and get out while you can. Do people really not have any hope for the company? Can it be saved? Or is it really a dying dinosaur?
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Why are you here then? Don't you have something better to do with your time?
“ It's in your best interest to learn what you can from this site. There is wheat amidst the chaff. Most who write here try to be helpful. Some of us have been in the software industry a long time, and we have seen how companies end.”
There probably is a very small amount of wheat amidst the chaff. The problem is everyone thinks what they post is the wheat.
Pointless.
no longer working there, but agree it's possible to be realistic while still trying to help as much as possible, collect cushy paycheck, try to hold out for a few more years (especially if you're this close to retirement). the people not in that situation may have a hard time relating until they're there.
"They’ll never be trusted to manage large software projects again."
Perhaps not your intention, but he firsst gut reaction was the Big German. Maybe he has found his forever home at VTech.
Some of us have been here 25+ years and just wanna see how the show ends :)
@hq+1jgxdnf0h It's in your best interest to learn what you can from this site. There is wheat amidst the chaff. Most who write here try to be helpful. Some of us have been in the software industry a long time, and we have seen how companies end.
"If you don't believe in the company, then why continue to work here? Oh, so you can collect your cushy paycheck and be a leech while not doing your part."
This is silly. One can be realistic about the likely future prospects of the company, and believe they don't look promising, without being a leech and not doing their part.
Depending upon one's circumstances (e.g. age, skills, ties to the area, ...), leaving a company you've worked at for 20+ years isn't an easy choice. For some people, the best option is to simply do their work and hope to be employed for a few more years.
@hq+1jgxdnf0h "If you don't believe in the company, then why continue to work here? Oh, so you can collect your cushy paycheck and be a leech while not doing your part."
You present a false dichotomy. You left out alternatives such as "collect your cushy paycheck while doing your part". I am among those who have no incentive to leave (make us a VRBP offer), but intend to remain productive until leaving.
"
I stay because I believe in the company. I could never work for a place I wasn't proud to work at. These comments are cringe."
Well that all sounds rather admirable at face value, but its also a bit sad. Because one day in the not too distance future you're likely to wake up and discover you've been made redundant, and wonder why your hard work is no longer needed and why this company you've been so loyal to all these years, isn't loyal to you.
Wowzer. These responses. If you don't believe in the company, then why continue to work here? Oh, so you can collect your cushy paycheck and be a leech while not doing your part. I stay because I believe in the company. I could never work for a place I wasn't proud to work at. These comments are cringe.
“…this is thoroughly deserved. So many bad decisions, it eventually became inevitable.”
True, it is deserved, on the part of those who made the decisions. They’ll never be trusted to manage large software projects again.
It’s not deserved, on the part of the employees who worked hard, and did their best to help their managers. For them, it’s bad luck.
But this is how free-market capitalism works. You try to find a good company to work for, and you do the best work and make the best decisions that you can. We each had free choice in this.
The only buyers of declining revenue streams are private equity, plus a few public companies like Broadcom. They all do mass layoffs after acquisitions. We don’t know when this ends, but we know how it ends.
At a large customer org. IT is slowly getting rid of legacy apps: SAS, Tableau, Business Objects, Alteryx, you name it, we got it, but it will take a quite a while. Arguably SAS is in the worst position for us out of those apps, because our outputs are all custom analyses that can be done moving forward in Python and R by the younger analysts and data scientists. The others have a lot of old assets for which IT managers are afraid to pull the plug, even though the authors have retired or left. SAS also doesn't play well with the IT processes. When I watch our tech support update SAS on my machine, there are always errors, and another tech has to be pulled in. Our user group is rapidly shrinking. The last few users will retire within 5 years. They are producing good analyses, will retire soon so aren't angling for the next data science type of job so don't need to use Python or R, but once they are retired, our SAS usage will fall off a cliff. To combat this inevitable demographic reality, SAS tried hard to train the next generation of analysts with its poorly executed free-for-academic-use packages, but the center of gravity in the big data and analytics world was obviously shifting to the mega Internet companies - too hard to put the genie back in the bottle.
Correct, it's hopeless.
No, it can't be saved.
Yes, it's a dying dinosaur.
There are a lot of well informed insiders and ex-insiders who post here, and it doesn't take much reading to realize it's almost a unanimous verdict...SAS is fu---d.
I for one, think this is thoroughly deserved. So many bad decisions, it eventually became inevitable. The only remaining question is how exactly it's last few dying years will play out.
@bv+1jgxdnf0h
I think you missed that the poster was referring to co vid.
How many people are "many" people? Who are these people? Could they just be disaffected keyboard warriors who have no line of sight into what is actually happening at a company that, despite being on its deathbed, somehow manages to still generate in excess of $3 billion in annual revenues?
Chicken Little would be embarrassed by you lot.
I think that the wonderful culture that we had at SAS did end. During the time that many people were ill, everyone was sent home, and we proved that working remotely works. Then only those who had undertaken a particular procedure were allowed to come back - hundreds of others were told they had to stay away (after threatening to fire them did not prevail). So they did stay away, and they did not come back even when the whole thing blew over. But a large divide was forged such that what - half or so - of the employees no longer work on campus. It is a very different place now compared to what it had been for decades. A little sad now, actually, compared to the "glory days".
Pick your poison:
- Price is too high
- Profits are underwhelming
- SAS no longer has much that the market wants
- Sellers are not willing to face reality
- Found's steadily advancing age means ever increasing odds of a health
- Founder's children(the likely heirs) appear very detached and uninterested
- One founder says when he is done with SAS that dirt will be thrown over him. The other founder has had decades to launch solo yet for some reason seems unwilling or unable to do so. Pure speculation is that unwilling far exceeds unable.
What does all this add up to? Drip drip drip. Each drip is one drip towards irrelevance. A ghost town in the making.
All good things have a shelf life.
In recent years, SAS has reduced headcount, created subsidiaries, hired consultants, cleaned up its books, advertised an IPO, and positioned itself as an “AI company” (https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1vskrCuD#2faw).
These are all actions you take if you want to sell a software company.
Some believe that, despite all these preparations, the SAS CEO will refuse to sell, because no one meets his price, or because he clings to power.
But a simpler explanation is that he is acting logically. He made a large bet on Viya, hoping it would reverse the decline. It hasn’t. Once that became clear, he decided to sell.
He talked with Broadcom, who didn’t meet his price. So he began developing an IPO alternative — which advertises that the company is for sale, and allows time to talk with other potential buyers.
The process of being sold may take another year or two, and any new owner may need a year to sort things out. I would not count on more time than that.
"With the advent of AI, new graduates, and the upcoming H1B bonanza, do those in their mid-50's and older really have several more good years at SAS?"
Absent a sale, and while I think layoffs will accelerate, I think it's plausible that it will be several more years (maybe not good years, but more or less status quo) before everything unwinds.
Just as COBOL is still in use, some V9 SAS renewals will continue for many more years because of all of the legacy code written in SAS. New sales will be all but nonexistent. SAS will continue for quite a while with new owners and management and a skeleton staff. It will no longer resemble the company for which us retirees once worked.
With the advent of AI, new graduates, and the upcoming H1B bonanza, do those in their mid-50's and older really have several more good years at SAS?
Unless someone comes up with an innovative new idea to turn things around, it certainly doesn't look good. I'd bet that the decline of V9 will significantly accelerate over the next couple of years. Viya is certainly not going to suddenly become popular after this many years, and the AI efforts have no chance given the competition.
If I was in my mid-50's or older, I'd probably just hang on (and live frugally) and hope for the best (i.e. several more years of employment and an eventual severance package).
The mid-40's/early-50's folks are the ones I feel the most compassion for. Hard age to have to pivot and find a new job (but on the bright side, many/most eventually do find a new job and a lot of them report being happier than ever).
If I was younger than that, I would seriously start preparing for an eventual layoff, and probably change companies if get a decent offer.
I do not see how it can live past the lives of the founders unless it is sold or has an IPO. They are keeping it alive.