Date:         Wed, 7 Jan 2009 10:48:27 -0500
Reply-To:     Akshaya Nathilvar <akshaya.nathilvar@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Akshaya Nathilvar <akshaya.nathilvar@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: R "Threatens" SAS, According to The New York Times
Comments: To: Phil Rack <PhilRack@minequest.com>
In-Reply-To:  <000f01c970d2$fc56f490$f504ddb0$@com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

I haven't got a chance to use R in workplace, but this is the kind of view,
I got when I was talking with our very experienced System Manager.
"Realistically, R, and it's for-profit cousin S+, are lousy for data
management, but good for some types of modeling, especially if you need to
get down-and-dirty with the underlying numerical methods.  For the data
processing world, SAS competes more with Oracle's many products, SQL server
analysis services, SPSS enterprise stuff, and a bunch of specialized
software."

Akshaya!


On Wed, Jan 7, 2009 at 9:19 AM, Phil Rack <PhilRack@minequest.com> wrote:

> I think if SAS is to offer an R interface with their product, there will be
> a catch of course. That being it will probably only be offered as part of
> the analytics packages so you will have to pay for from SAS anyway. In
> other
> words, if you want to run R, then you will have to pay the money for the
> advanced analytics packages like STAT, ETS, etc...
>
> The downside to SAS supporting R is that there is a real threat that the
> defacto standard for statistical analysis and modeling will become R and
> not
> SAS. If you want to make sure that your code can reach the largest
> audience,
> then you surely have to appreciate and respect what R can do for you.
>
> I wrote a program called a Bridge to R for WPS a while back and just
> recently upgraded it so that you can run R programs in parallel all from
> within the WPS Workbench. With this program, all your R logs and listings
> get routed back to your WPS log and listing files. Of course, running
> programs in parallel is dependent on the horsepower of your PC or server,
> but I've been able to run up to eight R programs in parallel on a Quad-Core
> PC running Vista 64 with 8GB of RAM. I wrote a short blog posting on this
> back in mid December with some timings. See:
> http://minequest.com/WordPress/?p=101
>
> Finally, I want to mention the issue about datasets having to fit in
> memory.
> When I issue a "memory.limit()" command in R, I get a reply of 3583.875.
> That's 3583.875 megabytes of available memory. I expect we will be seeing a
> 64-bit version of R on a windows platform in the near future. The other
> aspect of limited memory comes down (often anyway) to your ability to
> manage
> memory and your analysis. If your data doesn't fit in memory, You can
> sample
> your data set for your analysis. You can also use correlation and/or
> covariance matrices in some of the advanced statistical procedures instead
> of reading in the raw data and use that as the foundation of your data
> analysis.
>
> I suspect some of the older folks who had to work on hardware that was
> limited in comparison to today's hardware will chime in, but I remember
> being billed for every CPU second, every track of DASD storage used, and
> every I/O used. I think many of us have forgotten how to program for
> efficiency with the cheap hardware we have today.
>
> Philip Rack
> MineQuest, LLC
> SAS & WPS Consulting and WPS Reseller
> Tel: (614) 457-3714
> Web: www.MineQuest.com
> Blog: www.MineQuest.com/WordPress
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: SAS(r) Discussion [mailto:SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
> Virtual
> SUG
> Sent: 01/06/2009 11:42 PM
> To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: R "Threatens" SAS, According to The New York Times
>
> Hello everyone...
>
> Thought you might be interested in reading this article, which appears
> in the 1/6/9 online edition of The New York Times:
>
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/technology/business-computing/07program.ht
> ml<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/technology/business-computing/07program.html>
>
> The headline is "Data Analysts Captivated by R's Power," and towards
> the end of the story is the following paragraph:
>
> "While it is difficult to calculate exactly how many people use R,
> those most familiar with the software estimate that close to 250,000
> people work with it regularly. The popularity of R at universities
> could threaten SAS Institute, the privately held business software
> company that specializes in data analysis software. SAS, with more
> than $2 billion in annual revenue, has been the preferred tool of
> scholars and corporate managers. "
>
> Andrew Karp
> Sierra Information Services
> www.SierraInfomation.com
>