David Elliott wrote (excerpted):
But on the subject of SAS, I am currently helping put together a SAS
enterprise installation proposal for our department. I feel badly
because Stata has been my tool of choice for many years but we are at
that tipping point where the working datasets are hitting the 1Gb
boundary and the next step is 64bit computing in a corporate
environment that doesn't want to even think of supporting a 64bit
userbase. I'm impressed with the way SAS has been able to leverage
their expertise and start playing in the Business Intelligence market.
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Others going through similar growing pains have opted for a relational
database management system (RDBMS).
I assume that the acquisition proposal that you're helping out on
contemplates the alternatives and concludes in favor of licensing SAS. I'm
curious as to how that played out for you:
is there some side benefit to SAS that's built into the equation, e.g.,
SAS/STAT (I assume the proposal's asking for at least SAS Base and SAS/STAT,
and that you're not trying to get the boss's boss's boss to cough up for
Enterprise Miner),
is there some concern that the RDBMS route would imply the need to raise
department headcount for a full- or part-time administrator,
a sense that productivity would suffer working with SQL (and whatever else
the RDBMS might offer beyond SQL) and Stata in comparison to DATA step and
SAS Macro programming, PROC SQL, AF/SCL, etc.,
does the need for reporting figure into the selection, and if so, what
tipped the scale in favor of SAS as opposed to a software package from a
vendor specializing in reporting?
Joseph Coveney
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