he Little sas book Introducing SAS Software SAS software is used by people all over the world-in 118 countries, at over 40,000 sites, by more than 3.5 million users. SAS(pronounced sass) is both a company and software. When people say SAS, they sometimes mean the software running on their computers and sometimes mean the company People often ask what SAS stands for. Originally the letters S-A-S stood for Statistical Analys System(not to be confused with Scandinavian Airlines System, San Antonio Shoemakers, or the Society for Applied Spectroscopy). SAS products have become so diverse that a few years back SAS officially dropped the name Statistical Analysis System, now outgrown, and became simply SAS SAS Products The roots of SAS software reach back to the 1970s when it started out as a already b package for statistical analysis, but SAS didnt stop there. By the mid-1980s SAS had ranched out into graphics, online data entry and compilers for the C programming data warehouses, and building interfaces to the World Wide Web. In the new century, SAS has8 language. In the 1990s the SAS family tree grew to include tools for visualizing data, admi continued to grow with products for cleansing messy data, and analyzing genetic data Appendix C,"An Overview of SAS Products, "lists the products available at the time this book was written. Just as aT&T is now more than telephones and telegraphs, SAS is more than statistics. be put together like building blocks to construct a seamless system. For example, you might us an While SAs has a diverse family of products, most of these products are integrated; that is, they SAS/ACCESS software to read data stored in an external database such as Oracle, analyze it using SAS/ETS software(business planning, forecasting, and decision support), and then forward the Its in e-mail messages to your colleagues, all in a single computer program. Operating environments SAS software runs in a wide range of operating environments ou can take a program written on a personal computer and run it on a mainframe after changing only the file-handling statements specific to each operating environment And becaus SAS programs are as portable as possible, SAS programmers are as portable as possible too. If you know SAS in one operating environment, you can switch to another operating environment without having to relearn SAs Licensing SAS products Most SAS software is licensed. Lic software is like leasing it; once a year you pay your rent. Licensing has one important adva buying: you automatically get each new release without an extra c Since sas software is continually being improved and new versions released, licensing is helpful SAS Learning Edition This modestly priced edition of SAS can be purchased(not licensed Designed for students and business professionals who are new to SAS, this is a full-featured edition of SAS with some limitations. SAS Learning Edition is limited to 1,000 observations, expires on a specific date, and does not include live technical support SASware Ballot SAS puts a high percentage of its revenue into research and development, and each year SAS users help determine how that money will be spent by voting on the SASware Ballot. The ballot is a list of suggestions for new features and enhancements. All SAS users are eligible to vote and thereby influence the future development of SAS software. You can even make your own suggestions for the SASware Ballot by mailing them to SAS or by sending e-mail to suggest@sas.com.ForfurtherinformationabouttheSaswAreBallotseex The Little SAS Book Introducing SAS
Software SAS software is used by people all over the world—in 118 countries, at over 40,000 sites, by more than 3.5 million users. SAS (pronounced sass) is both a company and software. When people say SAS, they sometimes mean the software running on their computers and sometimes mean the company. People often ask what SAS stands for. Originally the letters S-A-S stood for Statistical Analysis System (not to be confused with Scandinavian Airlines System, San Antonio Shoemakers, or the Society for Applied Spectroscopy). SAS products have become so diverse that a few years back SAS officially dropped the name Statistical Analysis System, now outgrown, and became simply SAS. SAS products The roots of SAS software reach back to the 1970s when it started out as a software package for statistical analysis, but SAS didn’t stop there. By the mid-1980s SAS had already branched out into graphics, online data entry and compilers for the C programming language. In the 1990s the SAS family tree grew to include tools for visualizing data, administering data warehouses, and building interfaces to the World Wide Web. In the new century, SAS has continued to grow with products for cleansing messy data, and analyzing genetic data. Appendix C, “An Overview of SAS Products,” lists the products available at the time this book was written. Just as AT&T is now more than telephones and telegraphs, SAS is more than statistics. While SAS has a diverse family of products, most of these products are integrated; that is, they can be put together like building blocks to construct a seamless system. For example, you might use SAS/ACCESS software to read data stored in an external database such as Oracle, analyze it using SAS/ETS software (business planning, forecasting, and decision support), and then forward the results in e-mail messages to your colleagues, all in a single computer program. Operating environments SAS software runs in a wide range of operating environments. You can take a program written on a personal computer and run it on a mainframe after changing only the file-handling statements specific to each operating environment. And because SAS programs are as portable as possible, SAS programmers are as portable as possible too. If you know SAS in one operating environment, you can switch to another operating environment without having to relearn SAS. Licensing SAS products Most SAS software is licensed. Licensing software is like leasing it; once a year you pay your rent. Licensing has one important advantage when compared with buying: you automatically get each new release without an extra charge. Since SAS software is continually being improved and new versions released, licensing is helpful. SAS Learning Edition This modestly priced edition of SAS can be purchased (not licensed). Designed for students and business professionals who are new to SAS, this is a full-featured edition of SAS with some limitations. SAS Learning Edition is limited to 1,000 observations, expires on a specific date, and does not include live technical support. SASware Ballot SAS puts a high percentage of its revenue into research and development, and each year SAS users help determine how that money will be spent by voting on the SASware Ballot. The ballot is a list of suggestions for new features and enhancements. All SAS users are eligible to vote and thereby influence the future development of SAS software. You can even make your own suggestions for the SASware Ballot by mailing them to SAS or by sending e-mail to suggest@sas.com. For further information about the SASware Ballot see support.sas.com/techsup/news/sasware.html