“Customers don't want the current products and nothing new is being built anymore”
A damning statement. Is it true?
29 replies (most recent on top)
Nice == not “making waves”
Nice?
Nice people finish first at SAS. If you were nice enough 20 years ago you're a director or higher now. while everyone below you expired on the vine waiting for you to move up or move on. but you couldn't so they couldn't and that's why to company is stuck in 2008. congratulations, you're immortal..
“Notice how I'm not bragging about my accomplishments at SAS? I don't need to because they speak for themselves.”
Learn to read in context. Not even remotely a brag. If so I’m the worst bragger ever. The “making waves” comment was in the context of repeated claims that you cannot have ideas or make an impact at SAS without being beaten down by “the man”. While it may be true for some it is not true in a company wide sense.
I know your fragile ego can’t handle anyone voicing a different experience but who really cares…
“But I’m sure that in your head you are still the expert.”
Called it
The tension between you two is palpable. Get a room.
"Everything you say is complete conjecture based on 2 paragraphs on anonymous site."
On the Internet, no one knows you're a dog my friend. Everything you tapped into your keyboard in your seething rebuttal better serves my purpose than yours... Not knowing who you are or more about you I have to play the odds. And the odds are that you overestimate the value of your "contributions" to SAS, as I said.
Notice how I'm not bragging about my accomplishments at SAS? I don't need to because they speak for themselves. I don't need the positive reinforcement of strangers on the Internet like _some_ people do.
“If you ever met the BG you would know that listening isn’t his strong suit.“
I did, and it wasn’t.
In this regard, he was like most leaders I knew at SAS. The only ideas they thought good were their own.
This is the main reason SAS failed to innovate, and is laying off today.
E.F. Hutton, is that you?
'In any case Viya wasn’t a bad idea. Providing no compatibility and no clean migration was the bad idea."
Continued investment in Viya when the market was showing no interest in Viya was the bad idea. Viya was the wrong idea because it was way too late. No compatibility and no clean migration was the dagger of death for SAS and likely explains why potential buyers of SAS have as little interest in buying SAS as SAS customers have little interest in adopting Viya. A lose lose proposition.
Layoffs are an act of compassion. Get as many poor souls off the ship before she goes under the surface and sinks to the bottom.
@4qgz+1v1ueRQ The difference between us in this context is that I know what I’m talking about when it comes to myself.
Everything you say is complete conjecture based on 2 paragraphs on anonymous site. So I guess it isn’t you fault that you are so terribly wrong. What is your fault is leaping to such grandiose conclusions based on nothing. But I’m sure that in your head you are still the expert. You go dime store shrink guy.
@4duo+1v1ueRQA If you ever met the BG you would know that listening isn’t his strong suit.
In any case Viya wasn’t a bad idea. Providing no compatibility and no clean migration was the bad idea.
@4ecp+1v1ueRQA Internet shrink on full display.
I feel sorry for you. And it is crystal clear why nobody at SAS wants you having ideas.
" Just makes you a mo--n."
Orrr... you're a living example of Dunning-Kruger in effect. That's more likely.
"It is a big company."
Not really. And it's been getting progressively smaller every year for ten years. Enjoy being a "big" fish in a small pond, my friend.
"For 30 years I’ve made waves and been rewarded for it in every position I’ve been in."
I wish you had told that Big German that Viya was a bad idea 😁.
@3mtq+1v1ueRQA Doubt all you want. Doesn’t make it less true. Just makes you a mo--n.
It is a big company. Just because your little world su-ks doesn’t meant mine does.
"For 30 years I’ve made waves and been rewarded for it in every position I’ve been in."
Do you work at SAS? If so, unlikely. I don't know a single person at SAS who "made waves"and was rewarded for it. In fact, most of the people I know who "made waves" are no longer employed by SAS. The few I know who remain at SAS are in some kind of co-dependent relationship with their boss or habitually jump from job to job internally to stay ahead of HR. They never actually produce anything and habitually overestimate both their competence and impact. And if you're one of those people the company is better off without you.
In short, I doubt your story is true.
@3jeh+1v1ueRQA My experiences couldn’t be any further from that. For 30 years I’ve made waves and been rewarded for it in every position I’ve been in.
"SAS was a place to shut up and do as you were told, not to innovate. They are paying for it now."
And to think the plane fleet has been spun off into a company known as "Innovation Air". They won't get off the ground.
‘We tried applying for years such efforts to our work at SAS, but decisions “above our pay grade” ultimately rendered our work mostly ineffective.’
That was my SAS career also. You could try your best to help your managers. But when they lacked the fundamental skills to design and build software, they could not be helped.
If, because of their lack of skills, they were insecure, then suggesting better alternatives was hazardous to your career. You’d be classed as “argumentative”, “not a team player”, “not getting along”. They’d take it out of your pay.
SAS was a place to shut up and do as you were told, not to innovate. They are paying for it now.
"SAS is still very relevant is in FDA clinical trial submissions. "
And none of that is Viya.
Does SAS have anything to sell besides real estate that is NOT declining?
Absolutely 100% false.
This is the golden age of innovation at SAS! The best is yet to come.
On another note, SAS is still very relevant is in FDA clinical trial submissions. According to the information I read, the FDA relies heavily on SAS for verifying dr-g-related data submitted to to the FDA -- think clinical trial approvals. According to this source, SAS output is considered "the ground truth" by the FDA, and "thou shalt become a SAS programmer" if you want to work with clinical trials data.
That being said...there are efforts to challenge the FDA's reliance on SAS. The FDA does not "require" SAS, they simply require that your methods be validated and traceable. Folks are finding routes through the requirements language and submitting clinical trial data with R procedures that they validate and unit test themselves against known outcomes.
I'm assuming that all of this is in reference to base SAS, and not specific products with UI's.
Of course it's true.
And it won't change either.
What's that the big guy said once? "I'm going from SAS straight into the ground."
Problem is now he's taking the whole company with him.
… declining in relevance …
As a company, SAS is still bloated with management, administrative, marketing, and aging development employees that are artifacts of a business model that has been steadily declining and relevance for at least 15 years. These are the cold facts. Many of us were part of this and found a way through personal/professional development and a rigorous work ethic to exit. We tried applying for years such efforts to our work at SAS, but decisions “above our pay grade” ultimately rendered our work mostly ineffective.
The cold reality — the only probable future for SAS, as a growth-oriented company with any hope of success, is very significant layoffs in the next few months to free up cash flow to fund new niche products designed and built by many yet-to-be hired world-class, product and engineering people.
Such new products would be targeted to very specific industries and applications, based on realistic and rigorous marketing research using brain power not tainted by SAS history. Just about everything would likely need to be re-thought and only a fraction of the current product infrastructure would likely be brought forward. The probability that this will occur approaches zero given the founder’s historical behavior and advanced age.
Why would anyone pay through the nose for SAS when free products do the same things as good or better?
SAS had a window of opportunity several years ago to ramp up and dominate. The market was ours for the taking.
But SAS dropped the ball and no one would stand up to JHG and tell him the ugly truth, the reality.
Now SAS is pretty much a joke to people who make decisions about technology purchases for their orgs. Data scientists scorn it. Schools don't teach it so students aren't learning it.
I mentioned SAS recently to someone who's spouse has a Statistics-related role. "SAS is very expensive" was their immediate reply. They also said that their spouse stopped programming in SAS and now programs in R exclusively. They are not captive to either technology, as both are available where they work. They know SAS, but choose to use R.
I enjoy programming in R, and have no desire to learn SAS, nor any of their UI-based products, especially after working there. Why use someone's sh---y vanity product when you can program what you need directly? If I remember correctly, programming is what lead to SAS's growth in the first place.
R is available freely, and is easy to install. I can install an R interpreter into whatever IDE I choose, and hook it up to GitHub for version control. R democratizes statistical learning. I can't say the same for SAS. People are writing their own applications using a variety of languages, all scored with either R or Python. Who needs SAS?
In my opinion, and I could be wrong, customers want SAS products for the hooks to the API and underlying procedures that score whatever data they feed in. They don't want the UI. They only tolerate the products for the API access and because they fit a model just a wee bit better than competitor offerings. At some point, that wee little bit of model fitting won't matter as those with model tuning experience become more available in the market.