SAS 9.4 M8 being released soon?

[SASKiwi]

My understanding is that M8 would apply at least to all Foundation SAS products, not just Base SAS which is a Foundation SAS component. Also Foundation SAS products can be found bundled in other SAS offerings like SAS VA, DQ and so on.

[Morse_Bill]

Margaret, 

Here we are, January 2023.  Is this still the plan --  2023 week 5 ??

Thanks!

[MargaretC]

Yes, that is still the plan.  Stay tuned.

[rvwetzel]

Can you please provide an update on when SAS 9.4M8 will be released? 1/31 is next Tuesday. Any delays?

[MargaretC]

It is a go for 31JAN2023.   No delays.

Stay tuned for a blog with more details on SAS 9.4M8. 

[rvwetzel]

Thank you. Looking forward to the blog. Going to notify a client of the 1/31 release. 

[Quentin]

Very exciting.  I can't wait for 9.4M8 to show up in this table 

https://support.sas.com/en/technical-support/support-levels.html

with Standard Support through Feb 2028.  As soon as it's there, I will be emailing a LOT of IT people in my company to say "see, 9.4 is really truly not end of life in 2025!"

[yabwon]

I bet $5 it will be even longer than 2028 😉

B.

[PaulShannon]

Surely that should be you bet dollar5.
😄

[yabwon]

@Quentin,

I dug up this code stored on my disk (source are either @Rick_SAS or @ChrisHemedinger, credits to those gentlemen). So, up to the date of SAS Project start at NCU, the history of SAS releases could look like this:

 

all the best

Bart

[SASKiwi]

@yabwon  - I guess that puts me well back in the ancient era regarding when I started using SAS. Sometimes it feels that way too 😄 !

Like everyone, I'm looking forward to what M8 has to offer as we are planning to upgrade to that version shortly.

[shoin]

Has it been released? Yet ... #tap #tap

[SASKiwi]

@shoin  - Scroll earlier in the post - 31 Jan, next Tuesday.

[yabwon]

Like my favourite T-800 terminator used to say: "Old but not obsolete"  - I'm going to stick to that quote... up to the very end, mine or SAS... 😄😄😄

Bart

[Quentin]

Nice, I think that's from Rick's blog post:

https://blogs.sas.com/content/iml/2013/08/02/how-old-is-your-version-of-sas-release-dates-for-sas-so...

But your plot has the fully history, nice. 

One of my favorite parts of the plot is short "blip" of 7.0.  I remember that, because I started on 6.12 so 7.0 was the first time I had heard of a new SAS version.  And 7 introduced a lot (enhanced editor with COLORS, ODS, long variable names).  I remember playing with it but the company decided to keep using 6.12 for production work.  Then when 8.0 came out we used it.  I think a lot of sites just skipped 7.0 completely.

Also interesting that the gap between 9.1.3 and 9.2 was longer than thee gap between 9.4M7 and 9.4M8. Will be interesting to see what this curve looks like when (if?) M9 comes out.  Will it continue to flatten, or will the slope return to the historic slope?  Perhaps someone in the #hackathon can do a time series analysis to make some predictions. : )