Actually the real crux of the matter is that Microsoft is full of IT people.
The problem with IT people, is that they love to make things work with lots of bells and whistles and fancy bits, but then they forget what they really setout to do. SAS brings them back with to what the business wanted in the first place.
The world is cycling out of control because of the blossoming IT industry. Trouble is that IT is only about 25 years old, and Industry itself is 100's of years old. How can you expect IT to really understand the fundamentals of what business actually need?
There has been no real good development in what the computer actually does in the last 10 years. The world is waiting, on a knife edge indeed, for the next BIG step. Which way we will go – Will the pack of cards come tumbling down, or will a solid foundation be put in place so that good fundamental changes can take place?
No, SAS needs Microsoft to guide the world forward in making a platform suitable for all of us to use – that is the operating system. Microsoft needs SAS to tell it what the user community is looking for. They are inextricably linked.
So why do have such a struggle to communicate, as with these tools now, between SAS and Microsoft? Their architectures must be so similar because of working together for such a long time.
Simply put one cannot fundamentally understand the way that the other works.
There are some very few people who actually understand both ways of working, and can cross the border feely – at will – between the two. Those people must be some of the most valuable people in the whole world! And the way they operate is to be able to translate the language barrier that exists between the two communities, to something which both communities understand, in their own terms.
I have worked in IT for some years, but also have a chemical engineering degree. Also with on site production experience helps in visualizing the real needs of the business. I have worked in 24 companies across 8 industries, and the picture is much the same in every community. We all simply do not, fundamentally, understand where the other is coming from.