 Done is that better? CorporateM (Talk) 23:28, 21 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes. Protonk (talk) 00:09, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- "Many of the employee perks the company later became known for, such as fresh fruit, reasonable work hours..." this feels a little booster-ish
- Done Better? I removed "later became known for" which I don't think is in the source anyway. CorporateM (Talk) 23:29, 21 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes. Protonk (talk) 00:09, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- "In the 1970s, the company established its first marketing department..." I presume we're avoiding specificity because the source does so, but this seems like it should be constrained between 1976 and 1979.
- How about "late 1970s"? CorporateM (Talk) 22:37, 21 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Works for me. Protonk (talk) 22:38, 21 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Done CorporateM (Talk) 23:30, 21 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- How many founders did SAS have? which sold their interests?
- Four founders, two remain. I do remember seeing somewhere that one of them sold out for $200k or so early on. I'll see what I can find. CorporateM (Talk) 00:17, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Currently we have "and some of the founders sold their interest in the company". I suggest we move this to the second paragraph and say "Barr and Helwig later sold their interests in the company" to make it more clear? The source does not say the exact year that Helwig sold. CorporateM (Talk) 00:47, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- That's better and resolves my followup question about the implicit connection between getting a marketing department and having founders leave. Protonk (talk) 01:00, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Done No connection between the marketing department and some of the founders selling their shares. CorporateM (Talk) 02:12, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- the first paragraph in the history section is a bit confusing to parse. What, exactly was the original project at NC state? When was the project started? The third sentence jumps in "By 1976 the software had 100 customers" What software?
- Done better? CorporateM (Talk) 02:17, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes. Protonk (talk) 02:33, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I know this was raised on the talk page, but I'm not sure it's important to mention that SAS owns aircraft. Is there a secondary source which takes note of this?
 Not done Because there is at least one editor that disagrees with removing it, it is a "controversial edit" and I cannot remove myself per WP:COI. Please remove it if you are comfortable doing so. On the other hand, I'm not sure I should do another Request Edit on the same topic, after the original didn't go my way, which would seem like gaming (but really, yah, it should be taken out). CorporateM (Talk) 03:48, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I'll remove it with a note. Protonk (talk) 15:48, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- If it's replaced that shouldn't impact the review, so either way this is Done} Protonk (talk) 17:00, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Why not just note that it had been on Inc Magazine's list of fast growing companies for six years between 1979 and 1985?
- Done CorporateM (Talk) 03:04, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- "Its revenues come relatively evenly from Europe, Africa, the Middle East and the Americas." This was true in 2010. Is it true now?
- The latest stats appear to be: 11.9 percent Asia-Pacific, 41.4 percent Europe, Middle East and Africa America and 46.7 percent Americas. Should we replace it with a more up-to-date primary source? Press release = eww, but it might be ok for revenues. CorporateM (Talk) 03:54, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- My recommendation is to move from the general to the specific. I'd keep the source noting broad distribution and then make a follow on sentence noting exact distribution in 2014. Protonk (talk) 15:48, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Done CorporateM (Talk) 19:15, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Does the bit about Curriculum Pathways belong in the corporate culture? It's in a paragraph which discusses employee volunteering and I think could be better placed elsewhere.
- The two sentences are in the same paragraph because they are both about charity. Donating software and donating employee time. CorporateM (Talk) 03:56, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- "Employees are encouraged to work reasonable hours..." We have a source that notes most of the employees work ~35 hours a week and that programmer style binge sessions are discouraged. I don't have a problem noting the encouragement but I feel we can give a little more context to the claim by separating this from the fitness center clause and noting the observed work hours.
- Done CorporateM (Talk) 04:00, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep an eye out for close paraphrasing of the cnn article. I don't see phrases lifted but I do see claims made in quick succession from the same place (e.g. stay-at-home mom -> fitness center, both appear in the same paragraph in the same order from the same source).
- This one? CorporateM (Talk) 00:19, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes. I thought about refactoring this point because I don't think close paraphrasing is a problem, but it did seem worth offering a warning. Feel free to treat this as informational. Protonk (talk) 00:59, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Ok, the URL seems to going on and off. As soon as it's working again I'll take a look. CorporateM (Talk) 02:17, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Not done Argh. The link was working for a moment, but is down again. The article is not available through my library's online archives. If it's not something that's going to prevent it from hitting GA, I think we just let this one go. I have no method of getting to the source material unless the website goes back up. CorporateM (Talk) 21:32, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- What is the SAS certification program and why is it important to the history of the company?
- There is something like 35,000 or so certifications and numerous books published to prepare candidates for certification. It's not a very exciting topic that I would expect to get media coverage, but I would think any enterprise software page should have a sentence or two, the same way we include revenues and offices by de-facto. Let me see if I can find better/more sources. CorporateM (Talk) 21:36, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I think you resolved this by moving it out of the history section (which I agree with). Done Protonk (talk) 22:34, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- What information do we have on SAS publishing beyond a local newspaper in 2000? Does it still exist? What kind of books do they publish?
- Yup, still in operation and doing the same type of thing (publishing SAS-related books/documentation). I added another source. CorporateM (Talk) 21:29, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Looks good. Protonk (talk) 22:27, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- The User community section is largely about SAS certification and SAS publishing. I think one may think the latter is germane because it publishes books by SAS users except it's likely trivially true that a book on SAS will be written by a SAS user. :)
- According to the 20-page Stanford case study I'm reading from Jeff Pfeffer, the publishing of books written by users is unique: "In addition to publishing and selling its own users’ manuals and guides, the company publishes books on using SAS written by users who aren’t SAS Institute employees, an approach to being a publisher that is relatively unique in the software industry." CorporateM (Talk) 20:33, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I think that may be a function of owning an imprint, as (just looking at some other statistical software vendors) Maple & the R foundation don't publish the books about their language but the authors are necessarily users. State does appear to publish books in much the same manner as SAS. However if you're working from the case study I'm ok with sourcing that claim to Pfeffer (though I'm not sure it's as unique as he claims). Protonk (talk) 20:40, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Sometimes with really positive or negative articles, the sources are written by enthusiasts or critics that can get carried away. I think it is best to include it, but without adding the commentary about how unique it is, which is a really bold claim that would require particularly exceptional sources. Especially if original research seems to put the claim in doubt. CorporateM (Talk) 21:31, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- "SAS became known as a good place to work..." I'm not sure this clause is necessary. The following claim noting specific recognition by various magazines is more clear.
- Hrm, I think the first sentence helps provide context for the following statement about the rankings. If you feel strongly you should remove it though. CorporateM (Talk) 03:01, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I know there was some discussion on the talk page about knocking down the size of the Software section, but I think it can be expanded somewhat. e.g. there's no mention of JMP (which is a rather large interest for SAS, especially in BI). It doesn't need to be 5 paragraphs or anything, but I think some more context can be given to the reader.
- Done How's that? I just added JMP and some content about their business model. The reason this section is a bit short is because there is a separate article on the software at SAS (software). CorporateM (Talk) 21:16, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I'd remove the bit about JMP graph builder (but that's just my opinion). Also the ref you had for JMP genomics was never added, just the name. It was causing reference errors so I replaced it with a {{cn}} tag. Otherwise it's an improvement. Protonk (talk) 22:27, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Is there any other info on the education division aside from that AP article?
- the operations section is mainly about SAS's R&D budget. We could move the reseller program information to operations and split out R&D into a distinct paragraph. that way we have a bit on R&D (Which is important to the company and noted by many sources) and sales/ops/etc. in another paragraph.
- I disagree. it looks like it only has two sentences about R&D and it makes sense in that paragraph about operations and revenues, since it discusses R&D as a percent of revenue. CorporateM (Talk) 21:29, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I'll take another look. Protonk (talk) 22:27, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I think I figured out why this was bothering me. We have "In 1994, Computerworld found that out of the world's 50 largest software companies, SAS had the highest ratio of R&D spending as a percent of revenue and 2.5 times the industry average." which is true but it follows a general statement where we report that SAS has the highest R&D ratio already. Try just reporting that they were 2.5 times the industry average in that sentence and see how it reads (noting the year and the source). I think you'll be happy with it. Protonk (talk) 03:52, 23 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Done CorporateM (Talk) 13:38, 23 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Looks good. Protonk (talk) 14:59, 23 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- SAS Institute Inc. v World Programming Ltd should probably be noted in the body of the article, though it is in a see also section. I can't see it meriting more than a couple of sentences, but I think it's closely related enough to be included.
- To provide some context, the reason it's not here is because it's already covered at SAS (software), which is duplicated here using Summary style. (the lawsuit is not in the Lead of the software page, so it didn't get carried over). It is also a corporate issue, so we could just copy/paste the paragraph on the lawsuit here, but then it would be on three Wikipedia pages redundantly. Not sure what to do about it. CorporateM (Talk) 22:04, 21 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I'll see if I can write some copy. In the meantime just ignore it. :) Protonk (talk) 22:09, 21 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- @CorporateM: See here for a first crack. It's short and to the point. I'm surprised there isn't more coverage of the subject because it's a pretty important case in terms of software copyright, but so it goes... Protonk (talk) 14:23, 23 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I added a period and changed "argued" to "alleged". Did you want to keep it in all three places then? (the software page, corporate page, and a dedicated page). CorporateM (Talk) 14:47, 23 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm ok with the information being in multiple places so long as each (or for our concerns just the one here) are appropriate for the context. Here a short note in the company's history seems fine to me (plus it lets us get rid of the see also section). Protonk (talk) 14:51, 23 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- KK. CorporateM (Talk) 15:09, 23 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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