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SAS in the Open Source World

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Over the last couple days, there have been some posts in SAS-L as well as those new fangled twitters, on whether 'R' open sourced software is a threat (ignoring the SAS Sales team's response) and on whether SAS could move to Open Source. Highlights from these discussions:

  • New York Times Article that started the discussions this week.
  • Specific comments from SAS in the article:
    “I think it addresses a niche market for high-end data analysts that want free, readily available code," said Anne H. Milley, director of technology product marketing at SAS. She adds, “We have customers who build engines for aircraft. I am happy they are not using freeware when I get on a jet.”
  • Twitters on the article think the SAS comment is 'sour'.
  • SAS-L posts disclaim the reduction in SAS related traffic and feel that 'R' is a deadend discussion.

However, take a look at one of the User Group papers presented in 08: SESUG-2008-Paper 094 Proposes that SAS Users begin their own Open Source Community to implement new functionality. If open source is accepted by more in the community and users what more/better functionality quicker, how can SAS accept the proposal and not loose sales in the process?

My twitter'd @sasbi proposal needed a bit more explanation, so here is my idea for SAS:
1. Take the SESUG proposal as the frame and add some basic functionality
2. Begin an Open Source Community on sascommunity.org

SAS will still have their licensed product mix. Customers (such as those in regulated fields) will still require a fully tested and validated statistical package to complete analysis. Even 'unregulated' companies are not comfortable with the Open Source environments.

There is a business case for vendors to move toward open-source. ZD Net points to providing benefit to end customers and mentions a hybrid approach for vendor's sales.

So wouldn't all of the customers benefit from getting new functions and improvements or be able to create their own without going to another niche analytics product? And then ... SAS could be the best and only option for analytics!

Tags business intelligence
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About Author

Angela Hall

Senior Technical Architect

Angela offers tips on using the SAS Business Intelligence solutions. She manages a team of SAS Fraud Framework implementers within the SAS Solutions On-Demand organization. Angela also has co-written two books, 'Building BI using SAS, Content Development Examples' & 'The 50 Keys to Learning SAS Stored Processes'.

5 Comments

  1. Angela Hall on

    Seth,My assertion is related to the fact that there are corporations on both sides of the regulatory fence that are uncomfortable with the utilization of open-source code systems for critical infrastructure.I used to work for one.- Angela

  2. Seth Grimes on

    "Even 'unregulated' companies are not comfortable with the Open Source environments."I believe this is simply wrong. Can you supply evidence to support that this assertion is generally true?

  3. Seth Grimes on

    Steve, Anne's blog relegates R to the role "venue for bleeding-edge and experimental data analysis methods," which I believe is (again) out of touch with the many ways in which R is being used, including, I'd guess, by SAS customers.

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