To many researchers, SAS Institute has provided the most powerful and reliable data manipulation and statistical analysis software available. To kick-off the new millennium, all Penn State students now have access to install and use this industry-leading software on their personal computers, completely free of charge, thanks to a $1 million educational software grant provided to Penn State from SAS Institute. This software is not a "student version"; it is in every way the one and only "full" software product, identical to the SAS, software used by Fortune 500 companies. Our license now includes a greatly enhanced suite of components not included in our license package in the past. Penn State is one of just five universities in the world with a comparable arrangement for their students.
Academic departments may participate in the SAS software program for a nominal annual fee that, in most cases, is less than what they had paid last year to use the software on just a few specified machines. The difference today is that the departmental license is unlimited, including any and all departmental machines and the personal computers of the department's faculty and staff. The enhanced and interactive user interface components available to students are also part of the departmental license. These components include the very popular SAS/IntrNet, AppDev Studio, JMP, and the interactive data management and statistical analysis features of Enterprise Guide. Network and systems researchers will find the interval data reporting tools of the new IT Service Vision component to be a powerful tool. With this component, it is easy to generate daily, weekly, monthly, and annual graphs for a variety of pre-defined and customizable data sources including system and security logs, Web logs, and virtually any other periodic data log imaginable.
SAS Institute
In a world where companies "recreate" themselves, beginning with their identity, SAS Institute has chosen to evolve continuously, beginning with the software product. Their name has never changed, and the person at the helm of this company--the largest privately held software company in the world--is the same person who, as a graduate student, began writing an agricultural data analysis program that has since become known simply as "SAS" (That's pronounced as a word; if you spell it out, you'll be referring to the Swedish airline).
Dr. Jim Goodnight began developing the software at North Carolina State University (NCSU) before Watergate became a household word. In 1976, recognizing that his program had expanded beyond the mission of the university, SAS Institute left the campus in Raleigh to continue development and begin serving demand for the software as a private company. The first license agreement Penn State signed with SAS Institute was dated May 1, 1976, just weeks after the fledgling company moved into a small house above a garage, not far from the NCSU campus. This year, SAS Institute ranked 2nd in Fortune magazine's annual list of "100 Best Companies to Work For", and in 1999, revenues exceeded $1 billion. The company has gained the respect of researchers and businesses alike by reinvesting a full 30% of revenues back into research and development--more than double the 14% industry average.
Today, SAS software is a part of everyone's life. Have you ever taken a drug approved by the FDA? Do you ride on Goodyear tires? Did you participate in the 2000 US Census? These companies and organizations all depend on SAS for their success. All drugs approved by the FDA undergo clinical trials that are analyzed using SAS software. The U.S. Census Bureau has licensed SAS for everything from their largest mainframe computers to the laptops taken out to the field. The 2000 deccentennial census is a SAS Warehouse.
SAS software
In the premier issue of sas.com (November/December 2000), Dr. Goodnight observed that "SAS has always been valued as a decision-making tool, but many had the false impression that you had to be a statistician to glean strategic information out of data." Recognizing that SAS software suffered from its earlier successes as a statistical analysis package, SAS Institute recently embarked on a mission to emphasize its decades-long development as an enterprise-level complete data management, manipulation, analysis, and reporting suite.
Indeed, SAS serves as a powerful relational database in its own right, and one of the most flexible database access tools, with it's specialized pass-through facility that communicates directly with Oracle, DB2, SYBASE, and Microsoft database servers, among others, including ODBC-compliant databases. Guided and Interactive Data Analysis components enable exploratory data analysis in addition to assisting with the selection of statistical techniques and the interpretation of results.
Enterprise Guide, now available to Penn State as part of the SAS software license, is installed separately and works with the core SAS software package to access remote data libraries transparently and provide an even more powerful interactive statistical analysis interface. "Today, SAS software still has a place in the back offices and data centers, but you're as likely to find it on the desktops of decision-making executives." (Goodnight, sas.com, November/December 2000).
Penn State and SAS
Aside from the popularity, flexibility, applicability, reliability, and robust nature of SAS, perhaps the three most reassuring aspects of the company and its software are its unparalleled technical support, the annual SASware Ballot and it's user base. As educators, researchers, and students, we must recognize that we invest valuable time and resources in learning and relying upon a product provided by a company with a profit motive. What reassurances do we have that we can find timely solutions to our questions about using the software? Will the company respond to our interests? Will they be there for us tomorrow?
The Center for Academic Computing encourages that we handle as many SAS questions as possible "in house" via the sashelp@cac.psu.edu e-mail address and the saspsu@cac.psu.edu user community e-mail list (Please see http://www.sas.psu.edu/lists.shtml for information on using these resources). However, any SAS user may submit questions directly to SAS technical support. Right at the top of the SAS technical support Web page is boldly displayed (and I mean, in bold type) the following guarantee: "NOTE: Any problem or question submitted via this Web form will receive a response within 24 hours or less, with the exception of holidays and weekends." They mean it, they do it, and the answer is almost always a useful one, if not the one you were looking for.
The SASware Ballot is SAS Institute's annual software survey. This is an opportunity for SAS users to tell SAS developers what new features they would like to see added to the software and services. All SAS Software users from around the world are invited to participate in this survey. The survey consists of a subset of suggestions that are submitted to SAS Institute's Sales, Marketing, and Technical Support staff throughout the year. They also encourage their users to submit their ideas by sending e-mail to SUGGEST@SAS.COM. Once per year, usually around the middle of the second quarter, they choose the top suggestions and begin the process of compiling the survey. Each year at the SAS Users Group International (SUGI) meeting, they report the work they've done on the most popular survey items.
SAS Institute does not sell their software; it is available for an annual license only, which includes unlimited technical support. This ensures a continuous revenue stream for the company, and it ensures that they focus on providing continuous and reliable support for a reliable product. They do not benefit financially from releasing a new version for the sake of forcing their customers to abandon the old to buy the new. Approximately 33,000 user sites located in 110 countries around the world are the assurances we have that SAS will be there for us tomorrow.
A SAS Mini-Conference at Penn State
Faculty, researchers, and graduate students are encouraged to attend the Spring 2001 SAS Mini-Conference on April 17, 2001, from 12:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m., in 112 Kern Building. Formal presentations and informal live demos will accent the mini-conference. This conference, sponsored by Graduate Education and Research Services (GEaRS) of the Center for Academic Computing (CAC), The Population Research Institute (PRI), and the Penn State SAS Users Group PSUSUG), will focus on the advanced features and enhanced interactive user interfaces new to Penn State's SAS license. In addition, representatives from SAS Institute and the sponsoring Penn State organizations will present and demonstrate new SAS version 8 features and components to assist programming and data management in the classroom and laboratory.
There is no cost for the SAS Mini-Conference and free refreshments will be provided. Due to limited space, we ask that attendees register in advance. Please go to http://cac.psu.edu/gears/sasmini/signup.html. More information about the SAS Mini-Conference can be found at http://cac.psu.edu/gears/sasmini/. Inquiries about this conference can be directed to sasnews@cac.psu.edu. For general information about SAS at Penn State, please see: http://www.sas.psu.edu/