There are tons of 5 star reviews on Glassdoor. The skew towards 5 appears suspect. Some reviews are blatant HR advertisements. Is management pressuring employees to leave glowing reviews?
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Thank you for such a thoughtful analysis. Because of the partnership, many people have suggested that Microsoft might acquire SAS. As you have explained, that would not make business sense for Microsoft.
To your point 7), advanced analytics were the "crown jewels" of SAS. But Microsoft bought Revolution Analytics. So they don't need SAS analytics, because they are integrated with R.
To your point 8), in addition to Fraud and Risk, JMP is also profitable. Those three products might be considered the "crown jewels" now.
Microsoft (MS) would gain nothing by acquiring SAS. Here are some points to consider:
- The aging multi-tier architecture of SAS v9 is not a good fit for the Azure cloud and requires way too many computing resources for the value that delivers.
- There’s nothing in the SAS Compute and Data Management Infrastructure that MS does not either already have a superior alternative to, could build and integrate much better with Azure, or simply doesn’t need. This is true for both SAS V9 and Viya architectural flavors.
- The SAS data step has very little-to-zero value when it comes to building new applications. Python (free) and its multitude of optimized libraries dominate the space now. JG has historically argued that because the SAS data step generates optimized machine code, it is superior to Python as a language. Apparently no one in user land got that memo nor cares — especially considering that Python libraries normally do the “heavy lifting” when it comes to compute intensive algorithms.
- The SAS macro facility and its ability to customize the dynamic generation of data step and PROC code in service of interesting/useful data pipelines was a cool feature 30 years ago. Does anyone still care today outside of a few hundred aging SAS diehards who still remember partying with Jim at their first SUGI?
- Access engines to various relational databases and distributed repositories like HDFS is another dying market.
- SAS does have some visual UX assets that are impressive when dealing with complex analytics that tools like tableau can’t handle. However, these GUI‘s are so wrapped up in SAS-specific infrastructure and mid-tier/micro service madness that Microsoft, or any other potential buyer would be better off to rewrite them using their own services and infrastructure.
- The SAS “family jewels” were once considered its advanced analytics algorithms and their optimized implementation built within the cozy boundaries of SAS proprietary technology. Not sure how relevant any of this is given the growth of open source analytics over the last 15 or 20 years and the fact that Google, Microsoft, and everyone else can seemingly afford to pay the best PhD’s and post docs much more to come to work for them.
- Perhaps I am missing some other important SAS computing components or products, but I believe that leaves us with SAS vertical solutions like Risk and Fraud. Considering these offerings are largely built on the technology represented in points 1-7, how attractive are they to any potential buyer, especially Microsoft?
What evidence is there to lead anyone to believe that SAS is being groomed for a takeover by Microsoft?
Microsoft doesn't want or need to buy sas for anything. If they did they only want the code not anything else. Anyone who thinks they'll get rich off a microsoft acquisition is dreaming.
That list is pay to play. Companies don't magically get picked for it. A pretty big and detailed effort goes into providing all the info Fortune needs to generate its rankings. Much more work than anyone would think. At one point there were people here who worked only on the Fortune submissions. Last ranking was 86 in 2021.
I noticed that SAS fell completely off the Fortune best place to work list. This is the first time since the list has been published I believe. What would Microsoft gain by buying SAS? Inroads into some banking, government and healthcare clients?
SAS hasn't made many, if any of the "Best Places to Work" lists in quite some time. That, and the "low turnover"/still hiring while others are hiring mantra was key to SAS' marketing. Looks like SAS is being groomed by a MS takeover so forget loyalty - no one will find out what is happening to their career and/or job until the Friday before they are to be laid off on the following Monday.
I'm early career and my manager asked me to leave a positive review on there. Probably gonna quit soon so I don't think so.
Early career employees and new hires are being encouraged to leave positive reviews by HR. Others come from old timers who are convinced there will actually be an IPO, they're protecting their own interests.
Someone I know told me sas has been paying an online reputation managemt company to bury or eliminate bad or negative reviews. You pay the company to manipulate what shows up when people google the company name. One of my customers called me very annoyed because she had received 3 emails from sas basically begging her to leave positive reviews for sas on some gartner website. offering a $25 giftcard or something in exchange for every positive review. I didn't know anything about it and the sales manager didn't either but he asked a few people and apparently it's true that sas did this. The emails came from Jenn Chase. I seriously couldn't believe it.
Wouldn't be surprised if Glassdoor shared private information with companies in exchange for money. If you have an account with Glassdoor and you reveal your actual personal information, then I would not consider any post "anonymous". Just sayin', highest bidder.
Fact: companies can pay glassdoor to cull unfavorable reviews and thus spike their overall ratings.