SAS on SUN 4: major price increase

[Mark Schildhauer]

I like SAS, and so do a lot of other people here at the University of
California, Santa Barbara.  That is why I am extremely concerned with the
MASSIVE price increases dropped on a lot of Unix machines, effective Jan.
1991. Machines such as the SUN4/370 (390, 470, etc.), will be experiencing
price increases of between 300-500% !! Needless to say, this is going to
be nearly impossible to justify before my budget committee...  and we
might be forced to move to other stat packages.

I have talked with several of the people at SI, and they were generally
sympathetic.  There seem to be two major issues.  First, how reasonable is
SI's new pricing structure?  They claim their classification is for multi-
user machines, but users here perceive performance decreases when 2-3
people are running modest GLM's.  The old '3 workunit' classification
seemed a lot more in line with realistic usage.  Second, I have checked on
two major competing packages and they are priced at less than half what
SAS hopes to collect from us...and this is without even considering that
those competitors are willing to consider further discounting for multiple
servers.  The new Multi-user license fee from SAS has no discounting built
in.  If you want to bring up say, 4 SUN4/370's with Base and Stat, expect
to pay $3500 apiece for the first year.  It doesn't matter that you may
already be a major customer on the identical platform.  I think it is
grossly unfair for S.I. to do this to the growing base of minicomputers
which are becoming the instructional workhorses, at least at this campus.
In addition, doesn't SAS realize that their academic market effectively
provides training for the future analytical workforce?  On University
budgets in times of fiscal constraint, I fear that SAS will no longer
expand at our campus, but could (perish the thought) be phased out by
budget-minded administrators.

If you share this concern, please express your feelings directly to the
director of marketing at S.I.:

     Barrett Joyner, Director of Marketing
     SAS Institute, Inc.
     SAS Campus Dr.
     Cary, N.C.   27513-2414

     Attn: Marketing

It would probably be particularly effective if SAS heard from disgruntled
faculty and administrators.  I understand that there has been a fair
amount of debate recently over the new licensing structure, so let's get
in those cards and letters. 

Thanks for your help.

Mark Schildhauer
Technical Coordinator
Social Science Computing Facility
University of California, Santa Barbara 93106
schild at alishaw.ucsb.edu