sasaki@HARVARD.HARVARD.EDU (Marty Sasaki) (09/13/85)
We have been having problems with SAS (on VMS) since we first
installed it. The documentation is poor and there are many bugs. Our
help topic has the warning "Use at your own risk".
We are the holders of the primary license at Harvard. When another
Harvard site wants a copy they contact SAS and then SAS tells us that
they are legit and we send over a copy of the tape and the release
notes. We managed to lose the release notes to the latest update and
one of the secondary sites wanted a copy. We called SAS asking for
another copy. We were told that they won't send us another copy. It
didn't matter that we have a license. We can't buy another copy
either, some nonsense about copyright.
Does anyone have a copy of the 4.10 release notes that they could send
us? We will pay for copying and mailing costs.
I would recommend that anyone considering purchasing SAS reconsider.
The product works poorly and the customer service that we've
encountered has been poor, almost hostile.
----------------
Marty Sasaki net: sasaki@harvard.{arpa,uucp}
Havard University Science Center phone: 617-495-1270
One Oxford Street
Cambridge, MA 02138sasaki@HARVARD.HARVARD.EDU (Marty Sasaki) (09/14/85)
I guess our problems are just local, or we just manage to get the wrong people on the telephone. The support from the SAS Institute has been uneven, and the last call (the problem with the release notes) was truly horrible. Our problems with the documentation have not been great, just a number of small ones. Things like functions being listed in the index, but having no corresponding manual pages and functions that are not implemented having no mention in the manual that they are not implemented. Our versions have been buggy. Programs which worked on the IBM here at Harvard would go into infinite loops, or would crash SAS. Maybe bugs have been fixed and I am being unfair, but most of our users have changed to other packages. Maybe it is time to reconsider SAS. I can't imagine that what Peter is talking about is the same SAS that we were running, there must have been changes made that I haven't noticed. I apologize to the SAS Institute for flaming their product, it sounds like it is now a good piece of software. However, I do stand firm on the support issue, and am still looking for the release notes. Marty Sasaki (sasaki@harvard)
sasaki@HARVARD.HARVARD.EDU (Marty Sasaki) (10/08/85)
I have received quite a few notes after my posting about SAS. I have
also received a few phone calls, one from the SAS Institute. My major
conclusions about SAS?
o The network really works. I got offers for release notes and
even copies of the version 5.0 SAS manuals. The SAS Institute
called and straightened things out.
o The response to SAS v4.10 is mixed. Some people are fairly
happy, others aren't happy at all.
o Support has also been mixed. Usually, questions about
statistics and about SAS are answered. The problem comes when
there is something VMS specific, then the support seems to
fall on it's face. The exception is when you can ask one of
the developers your questions. The SAS Institute is aware of
this deficiency and is working hard to fix this.
I was surprised to hear from an IBM site that also had support
problems. Some folks have had really good support. I don't
know what to think.
o The documentation for v4.10 is poor, and contributes to many
problems with SAS. The SAS Institute agrees with this point.
o Version 5.0 of SAS is coming soon and fixes all of the known
problems. The v5.0 manuals are complete and much easier to
use. The language is finally consistent across operating
systems.
This last bit of information comes from several v5.0 field test sites.
The folks at the SAS Institute seem to be trying hard to make a really
good product.
I remain cautiously optimistic about SAS. Rumor has it that the new
release will be shipped soon.
Marty Sasaki (sasaki@harvard.edu)