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SAS a ‘fatted cow’? New York Times takes an in-depth look

Jim Goodnight

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Note: The Skinny blog is written by Rick Smith, editor and co-founder of Local Tech Wire and business editor of WRAL.com.

CARY, N.C. – Steve Lohr, a reporter for the New York Times, demonstrated over the weekend that newspapers can still on occasion give writers time and resources for good in-depth story telling.

In the Nov. 22 issue, Lohr profiled SAS with more than 2,000 words. That’s a lot, especially in these days of newspaper decline. More importantly, Lohr spent two days at SAS, the Skinny is told. Plus, he obviously spent additional time aware from the SAS campus, talking with analysts and SAS competitors in the business analytics space.

Titled “At a Software Powerhouse, the Good Life Is Under Siege,” Lohr documented at length the qualities that have made SAS such a highly regarded place to work over the past 30 years. However, most interesting to The Skinny were the comments he gathered from analysts about the increasing competition SAS faces from business intelligence intruders such as IBM and reaction from SAS Chief Executive officer Jim Goodnight as well as marketing chief Jim Davis and Chief Technology Officer Keith Collins.

“It will be a dogfight,” Lohr quoted Bill Hostmann, an analyst at Gartner, as saying. “SAS has never faced a competitor like I.B.M. And I do think I.B.M. sees SAS as a big, fatted cow.”

Could be, but SAS isn’t thinking like an animal being led quietly to slaughter.

“Our advantage is the incredible depth of our technology, developed over years and applied to specific industries,” Goodnight told Lohr. “No one can match our toolbox.”

Added Davis: “We know we have to change — no question about it. Our market space has changed dramatically in the last 18 months or so, more than at any time over the 33-year history of the company. We can’t sit back. Things are only going to get faster.”

Collins made an interesting concession: “Shame on us for not engaging more with the open-source community. But we’re committed to doing that now.”

Another interesting point: Lohr says SAS is looking to “forge a tighter relationship with a big technology services company.” The potential partner wasn’t named.

Earlier this year when IBM made another big play in the business intelligence space by acquiring Chicago-based SPSS, SAS made Davis available to talk about how SAS would respond. He stressed SAS’ record, commitment to R&D, strong finances and its stability. At a recent global media day, Goodnight and Davis conceded that SAS’ record of increasing revenues every year might end this year. But they insisted the company remains very profitable, is pouring more than 20 percent of revenues into R&D, and isn’t making layoffs. It is also expanding, building new facilities at a rapid clip at its Cary headquarters.

Is SAS for sale? Goodnight keeps saying no.

However, IBM’s business analytics software unit made clear to Lohr that Big Blue has big plans for the space inn which SAS lives.

“This is the big growth strategy for I.B.M., the company’s next big play for this decade,” Goyal said. “SAS comes from the legacy world of statisticians and programmers. The real opportunity is in deploying this technology broadly in corporations.”

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The Skinny

WRAL Local Tech Wire Publisher and Editor Rick Smith dishes out tidbits from the local technology sector. Read more articles…