Thread regarding SAS Institute layoffs

I did about 3 years at SAS (on the Sales side). I came from a tech company that I watched grow from $1B in revenue when I started to $36B (all because of me of course) by the time I left - now ~$50B (younger than SAS).

So, only a couple of years, but it was painfully obvious the our existing customers had very little interest in migrating to Viya. From the new sales side- open source was eating our lunch. The Viya sales I was part of were mainly just an add on to existing deployments to hopefully get them over at some point (initially 3.5 then 4.0).

I wich all my old friends and colleagues the best - but leaving for greener pastures was a pretty easy decision. To be fair, easier to leave after a short stint vs a longer one.

Those companies had Art Departments, which weren't safe.

@bz you speak the truth.

OP: Harley Davidson should also be in your list.

@ee

pretty much how all the millennial analysts describe it. maybe sas will eventually figure out something else. very unclear what it could be. cloud, saas, big data, open source, now foundation models. it's a lot of disruptions for a legacy vendor to manage

“Don't say anything about DEI or Merit. Your postings will be removed.”

Boo hoo hoo the world is out to get me. I bet anyone coming back in a week still sees your post which is solely about DEI and Merit.

Don't say anything about DEI or Merit. Your postings will be removed.

“ We had the premier product for data analysis …”

Hasn’t the rise of Python, R, Spark, etc. done as much to disrupt SAS’ former dominance than Viya, or any other suboptimal initiative within the company?

Isn’t SAS considered “that bloated, confusing legacy Stats tool old people use” by most of the under 50 crowd?

@bz You are spot on.

Cr--ker Barrel’s problem is that people attracted by nostalgia are dying.

Changing their logo had nothing to do with DEI. They removed the picture of the old man to appeal to a younger market. But unless they also change their food and decor, their rebranding won’t succeed.

Cr--ker Barrel has an uncomfortable parallel with SAS. But they’re not the same.

SAS could reinvent itself by building SAS 10 compatible with SAS 9, with a migration path from Viya. That’s a simple statement summarizing complex engineering problems. But with sufficient investment, those engineering problems could be solved.

• With sufficient investment — there’s the rub. SAS has been decreasing* its investment for over a decade, through layoffs, buyouts, and attrition.

I don’t blame them; but I think it means that SAS 10 will never be built.

We had the premier product for data analysis, at a time when the amount of data in the world was exploding. Faced with that magnificent opportunity for growth, we chose leaders who actually managed to shrink the company.

I hate the way our company is ending. But we are all better off facing reality. Going forward, we have SAS 9 and Viya. Everyone must make their own best decisions, for themselves and their families. Good luck to all.

“ The parallels to the sinking of the Titanic are stunning.”

And non-existent. But being overly dramatic is effective at persuading people.

Each of those companies had an Art Department, which wasn't safe.

"withholding SAS 9 invoices (which means no renewal setinit) trying to force customer to move to Viya."

The parallels to the sinking of the Titanic are stunning.

At the end of the day you sometimes have to mix things up and it doesn’t always work. But companies typically rebound as consumers have short memories. Especially for everyday convenience products like Coke and Bud Light.

Coke is doing fine as you say.

Despite the perception AB is also doing fine with 15b revenue last quarter and net income of 1.7b

Cr--ker Barrel will be fine. I don’t get the need for the rebrand but they will get through it.

Viya we honestly don’t know as the numbers aren’t public. People on here will say they know. But they don’t.