Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!njin!psuvax1!psuvm!UCSCVM!CONJPM From: CONJPM@UCSCVM.BITNET (Jim Mulherin) Newsgroups: bit.listserv.sas-l Subject: Re: No Review of SAS in InfoWorld Message-ID: Date: 28 Feb 90 16:34:36 GMT Sender: "SAS(r) Discussion" Reply-To: Jim Mulherin Lines: 23 Approved: NETNEWS@PSUVM.BITNET Gateway In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 28 Feb 90 08:56:00 EST I think it is a clash of corporate cultures and regional cultures. I hope someone may be in a position to mediate it, because InfoWorld's readers and potential SAS customers both lose because of this ongoing impasse. SAS is different than other stat package vendors. SAS users really do establish, use, and benefit greatly from an ongoing relationship with SI. That is where SI is digging in its heels, insisting that the support people get in using the product, fixing problems, etc., is key to their product. InfoWorld comes out of the almost anarchist Bay Area culture with a strong sense of independence from the moguls of the mainframe way of doing things. (I have been a subscriber since the beginning when it was a populist tabloid and would go off on all sorts on anti-bigness crusades unrelated to computing.... Ah those were heady days!) A similar spirit of anti-bigness, anti-centralized computing dominates the computing culture of the university where the reviewer works, UCSB, another branch of the UC system where I work. I think it might be worth our while, maybe through BASAS, Bay Area SAS users group, to see if we can work out an arrangement both organizations can live with.