So what will former SAS Chief Marketing Officer Jim Davis be doing at Informatica?

He hasn’t changed his LinkedIn profile yet which shows him as still holding his SAS titles. Davis left the company Monday and SAS disclosed his departure Tuesday. But why did Davis leave and what’s his next job?

We checked with Informatica about the job and …

“I saw your article this morning [Wednesday] and wanted to let you know that Informatica is declining to comment on this matter right now,” wrote Informatica’s Debbie O’Brien in response to an inquiry about whether the company would confirm it had hired the long-time SAS senior vice president and what he would be doing at the California firm.

“If that changes, I will reach out in the future,” added O’Brien who is the vice president for corporate communications at the privately held firm. “Best … Debbie O’Brien.”

Meanwhile, SAS pushed back against WRAL TechWire’s assessment of what his departure means. But so far the executives who wrote The Skinny have declined to accept an offer to post their comments as a rebuttal.

Since they did not make clear in their correspondence that they intended for anyone other than WTW to see their remarks, they won’t be published.

This just in: Another poster who takes a shot at WTW:

“Any great company is more than any single employee. I doubt seriously if SAS will receive a ‘crushing blow’ from Mr. Davis departure. Perhaps WTW is learning how to use Buzzfeed style headlines to grow its traffic?”

“Nope” is the answer to the question. To paraphrase a former president, I guess it depends on how you define “crushing.”

Defending SAS

However, one person spoke out on the record – and identified himself as a SAS employee.

“Rick, I disagree that this is a crushing blow for SAS,” Scott Batchelor wrote in the Comment section of Wednesday’s Skinny.

First, “crushing.” He’s referring to the headline, which said the loss of Davis is a “crushing blow” for SAS. That word set off much of the criticism directed to The Skinny.

Back to Batchelor’s comment.

“Sure, Jim has been the face of SAS for the last few years. And he will be missed. But there are great leaders on campus that will step up,” he posted.

Any company as successful as SAS (never had a year without a profit) has to have a lot of talent. I never did say SAS didn’t have a deep bench. My point is, Davis has been such an important figure for SAS in so many ways for so many years that his departure has to hurt. Big time. That opinion hasn’t changed.

Batchelor went on to defend SAS as a great place to work. Annual workplace surveys certainly confirm that.

“There’s been more positive change and growth in the last year than I’ve seen in my SAS career,” he said.

Good to hear.

He also said SAS is “well positioned” to grow. Good to hear.

.”Analytics is such a hot topic right now, and SAS is well positioned to lead with their own products and work with open source to add more value.”

Batchelor goes on to defend SAS against another WTW poster who said in his opinion that SAS faces a difficult future.

“And I still think SAS has one of the lowest turnover rates among software companies,” Batchelor said.

SAS prides itself on great treatment of its employees. WTW has reported on that issue for years.

What upset Batchelor was the following comment from a poster who identified himself as “Tony Hamilton.”

“Lets be honest. SAS is in trouble,” he posted.

“They have focused on a selected audience with their products and relationships and the world has moved on. The Two Jim has a lot to answer for as the world moves to the Real Time Digital Democracy. Almost 10 Million users of R Analytics vs SAS and IT Pros going with other companies. Someone had to go… More to come in the form of failure from this company. That is why you have some many employees running for the door…”

Batchelor says that last comment is flat-out wrong.

“Sorry, Tony,” he said. “Employees are hardly running for the door. It’s a great place to work!”