And the many companies that currently use SAS are finding it increasingly difficult to find new hires with SAS skills. If they graduate with no experience using SAS, they will be far less likely to insist that their companies pay for a very costly software package.
This has created a serious problem for the SAS business model because the students of today are the business analysts of tomorrow. The decline in the academic market share has been especially steep in statistics departments where R has now become the preferred programming environment. So why is SAS now offering the core of its product line for free? For many years, SAS has made tons of money selling software to big companies, but its popularity among academics has been steadily waning. Not surprisingly, virtually everyone who uses SAS gets their license through their employer or their university. Last I checked, the starting price for a single-user license was around $10,000. SAS has long had a reputation for being one of the best statistical packages around, but also one of the most expensive. It’s essentially free SAS for anybody who wants it, and it has the potential to be a real game changer. Let me tell you about my favorite new toy, the SAS® University Edition, which was just released on May 28. You can’t use it unless you’re connected to the Internet. But the downside is that it’s completely web-based.
Installation is much simpler for SAS OnDemand.
The user experience is very similar, but there are two big differences. It’s being replaced by SAS OnDemand for Academics, which is now available here. You will no longer be able to download it after Apr. SAS University Edition will soon be phased out.
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