SAS Institute Announces Linux Port Of SAS Software

stoney27 wrote to tell us about another big -- no, make that huge name porting their product to Linux. This time, it's SAS, porting their SAS data-warehousing and management software to Linux. In a world filled with FUD and innuendo, it's refreshing to hear SAS research vice president Bob Moran explain the move by saying "[m]any IT managers are attracted to the reliability and ease-of-use of Linux." Given their market, it's almost predictable that the first release is for Red Hat specifically, but this release says they intend to support all major distros.

Comments

What's a "major distro"?

[Duxup]

WARNING: Possible dumb question.

SAS mentioned they're support the major distros.
What do most people consider "major distros"?

WARNING: Possible dumber question.
What say would be some of the things that would keep a program working in say Generic Distro A, where it doesn't work in Generic Distro B?
I've heard people mention "such and such doesn't work in X distro but it does in Y distro, but rarely why. Are there any major things that seem to keep things from working in one to the other distro?

Could this become a stumbling block for smaller distro's acceptance if say 4 major distros get most of the support from most companies and the little distro's do not?

Better learn how to pronounce SAS correctly!

[Jack William Bell]

I don't much like SAS, but it is one of the biggest names in business software on the planet. Ghu knows how many companies have SAS software running one or more of their mission critical systems. Hell, my company uses it for Payroll!

But if you every take a look at the development environment I guarentee you will shudder. Really weird stuff, with the data and the language all mixed up. I know some people who have worked with it in the past and they showed it to me and tried to explain it. I never really understood...

But that opaqueness is apparently exactly why SAS consultants make the big bucks. Like Oracle; you get paid extra for learning lots of weird stuff that doesn't work anywhere else.

So anyway, I guess this is great news for Linux. Given SAS, some decent database support and the work IBM has done recently porting Linux to big systems I believe it would be fair to crow a little! Linux is no longer a fringe OS, but is now becoming a major player in the business market. World domination is actually starting to seem plausible.

BTW: My friends who did SAS always took pains to remind me that you don't pronounce it 'Sass', but rather 'Ess Ay Ess'. It really chapped their balls to hear it the wrong way...

Jack