SAS is expanding its capabilities with Amazon and Google cloud, as revenue rebounds

SAS Institute is taking another big step into the cloud.

The Cary-based data analytics giant said Tuesday it is expanding cloud-native support of its analytics platform on Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud.

The additions come almost a year after SAS inked a partnership with Microsoft to make its cloud computing service, Azure, its preferred partner.

The cloud partnerships are critical, as companies — and SAS customers — rapidly move from on-premise data storage to the cloud, as cloud storage provides more flexibility and is often cheaper.

That was true before the pandemic. But with millions of employees removed from their offices — perhaps permanently in many cases — it has become even more of a focus for companies, said Bryan Harris, SAS’s chief technology officer, in an interview with The News & Observer.

Spending on public cloud infrastructure is expected to grow by 23% this year to $332 billion, according to a recent forecast by research firm Gartner. And those investments are going to a variety of cloud platforms.

Amazon Web Services remains the No. 1 provider of cloud computing, with Microsoft’s Azure firmly in second, according to Synergy Research Group. Together, the two companies control over 50% of the market for cloud services.

Microsoft, however, is gaining ground on Amazon.

Harris said many of its customers in the retail industry, for instance, have moved from Amazon to Microsoft in recent years, since Amazon competes with them.

Google Cloud, which Synergy ranked as the No. 3 cloud provider, is also growing. Google is investing heavily in cloud computing, and its new office in Durham will focus primarily on cloud computing, The News & Observer previously reported.

IBM, which owns Raleigh-based Red Hat, is a smaller player in cloud storage, but SAS expects to add updates for Red Hat OpenShift later this year.

“A high percentage of our customer base is now covered with all three, plus Red Hat,” Harris said.

SAS financial outlook

Harris, who took over his role in January, said it has taken a “significant effort” to make SAS’s tools cloud native, with the company having to update more than 50,000 lines of code.

“A lot of times when customers go from on-premise to the cloud, they’re not always happy with the performance they get,” Harris said.

“What we’re really doing is making sure (our platform) is running at the performance criteria that we believe is acceptable.”

The investments into its cloud capabilities come as SAS’s financial performance is steadying.

The company was initially hit hard by the pandemic, with sales slowing as large customers pulled back on spending initially.

Jim Goodnight, the company’s founder and CEO, even predicted that SAS would not make a profit for the first time since the company started in 1976.

That ended up not being true, and the company made $3 billion in revenue last year. However, that represented a decline of about 2% to 3% from 2019.

Harris said revenue is now growing again.

“Obviously 2020 was a tough year, and a lot of people were kind of protecting where they were at,” he said. “But we’ve had a very strong first quarter here, coming out with very significant improvements in revenues.”

Returning to campus

While SAS is still encouraging its employees to work remotely at the moment, the company’s world-renowned campus is open.

Shannon Heath, a spokeswoman for the company, said with the vaccine for COVID-19 more readily accessible, the company is taking a phased approach to reopening and having employees return to the Cary campus.

Still, things are closer to normal than they were. The campus gym has reopened, as has one of its cafeterias. And Harris spoke to The N&O from his own office.

“It is so exciting to see people and, you know, just get back to a little bit of a glimmer of normal,” he said.

Despite the success SAS has had working entirely remotely, Harris is still a believer in gathering together. Hybrid is here to say, Harris said, but there’s just a different energy, when you can bounce ideas off people in person.

“When you see people get around each other in a meeting, you forget, ‘Oh my God, this is why we love coming into the campus,’” he said. “To just hang out and see each other, talk about cool problems we are trying to solve and collaborate. That, to me, will start to win over more people to come back in.”

Competition for talent

At the moment, it can feel like every tech-related conversation in the Triangle brings up the competition of talent. With the arrival of thousands of new Google and Apple jobs looming, as well as continued growth from other existing players, many people are forecasting fierce competition for engineers and developers.

“Will it create competitive pressures?” Harris said. “Sure. But we’ve had competitive pressures for a long time.”

And while that competition might be heating up, SAS is still seeing a lot of interest from job candidates, Harris added.

For instance, whenever the analytics company posts a research and development job, it is still receiving around 125 applicants per job, he said.

“So there’s a lot of people really still very interested to work at SAS.”

This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. Learn more; go to bit.ly/newsinnovate.