Steve Miller at Information Management discusses the NYT story about SAS from last weekend, and notes that open-source R and major new players in the commercial BI space aren't the only threats to SAS's revenues. SAS is also facing competition from a low-priced commercial clone: WPS, created by a small software company based in the UK. WPS allows analysts to run SAS code and replicate the outputs without the need for a SAS license. And much like SAS has recently added facilities to call out to R, WPS can also interface with R thanks to the "Bridge to R" software created by third-party (or is it fourth-party by this stage?) software firm.
SAS clearly sees WPS as a threat: they recently sued WPS in the High Court in London, and the suit seeks to halt the sales of the WPS software. Interestingly, the lawsuit regards not the duplication of the SAS language itself, but instead relates to a violation of the terms of a student license of SAS:
“The lawsuit alleges that World Programming has used the SAS Learning Edition product for purposes of developing, testing and benchmarking its World Programming System software in breach of the terms of the SAS Learning Edition Licensing Agreement,” said John Boswell, Vice President and General Counsel at SAS.
WPS is fighting back:
"SAS are claiming that the way in which WP has used a $100 learning package bought on Amazon was not permitted by the terms of the click wrap license.
SAS is alleging that WP have run "the SAS Learning Edition software for the purposes of observing its operation and functions in order to develop the WPS software in a way which reproduces the operation and functions of the SAS System". European law provides that one can lawfully observe the operation and functioning of a computer program and develop interoperable or alternative solutions which perform the same function. So far as we can see, WP have honoured both the spirit and the letter of the law. We are surprised that a company of SAS’s repute would want to pursue this action"
The case continues.
Information Management: More on the Statistical Revolution – a SAS Story (continued)
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