You wouldn't expect people to gush over something as mundane as statistical analysis software, but that's exactly what you'll encounter if you talk to consultants who deal with SAS (pronounced sass) applications on a daily basis. Then again, these are f

The company is SAS Institute, and the product is a suite of decision support and data warehousing software installed at 30,000 customer sites worldwide, including 97 percent of the Fortune 100, SAS applications can be found throughout the pharmaceutical industry, in universities, at nuclear power plants and telecommunications businesses, in the insurance sector, and throughout government agencies. The Institute, a privately held company incorporated in 1976, is one of the top 10 independent software vendors in the world, and it leads the pack in percentage of revenue devoted to research and development.

Consultants aren't the only ones who rave about SAS software. Datamation named SAS software data warehouse Product of the Year in 1996 and 1997. The company also garnered Software Magazine's Editor's Choice Award for best decision support tools company for 1997, and it was named one of the "12 companies that define the direction of the database industry' by Database Programming and Design Magazine in 1997. Even support people love it. The Software Support Professionals Association gave it the Software Technical Assistance Recognition (STAR) Award in the complex support category.

SAS's wide, if quiet, success has created a growing demand for consultants fluent in the company's applications. "Since I've been with the company," says Joan Berenato of Devon Consulting in Wayne, Penn., "I've always recruited SAS programmers, and there's never a day when I'm not looking for one." Bolstering her observation, a recent search at the Data Processing Independent Consultants Exchange (DICE) Web site turned up 460 SAS positions, and 157 of those specifically sought independents.

Julie Youmans-Smith, president of Southwest Jules Consulting in Austin, Texas, likens the market for SAS contractors to those for SAP or Oracle consultants. She's even recommended that her friends who are programmers take up SAS. "If you knew SAS, you'd have it made," she tells them. (Southwest Jules Consulting became a SAS Quality Partner in June of last year.

Rates for SAS contractors start at $25 to $35 an hour across the country. "People with experience tend to be $35 to $45 an hour in the Philadelphia marketplace. In the New Jersey marketplace, $40 to $50 per hour," reports Berenato, who says the pharmaceutical companies in her area generate a steady supply of SAS positions. Ellen Montague of Renaissance Worldwide in San Francisco says that in her area rates start at $35 and go up to $60 or more an hour for people with several years of SAS plus mainframe experience.

Susan McCoy, a contractor in Wilmington, N.C., reports receiving five to 10 calls a week from people seeking her SAS skills. "It's not unusual to be able to get $45 to $50 an hour," says McCoy. "Some quick-hit stuff I was doing up in Connecticut was $75 an hour. But that's skill set," she adds. Some positions are straight programming (report writing, graphs, and macros), but many require business analysis and people skills in addition to SAS knowledge.

The market for SAS programmers and consultants can be traced to the software's portability and flexibility. SAS applications can run on virtually any platform and meet a large array of business requirements. "It's really remarkable that no matter what operating system you know, you can learn SAS and take it with you," says Youmans-Smith, who has done SAS on IBM MVS, VAX VMS, PC Windows 95, Windows NT, and Unix systems. "If you're a SAS programmer, you can drop into any installation and get started almost instantly," confirms McCoy. "You can make some wonderful executive information systems and management-level information systems, and the reporting tools are just unreal."

The diversity of SAS installations and functions means that SAS contractors enjoy variety too, "You're not hooked into one peghole area," says Youmans-Smith. "Contractors I know like that because typically if you're a contractor you like challenges."

Recruiters and SAS contractors agree that the best way to get into SAS is to take a class. SAS Institute offers them at locations across the country. The three-day SAS Fundamentals courses cost $750. Another alternative is to seek out a course at a local college or University. The Philadelphia College of Textiles & Science, for example, runs a six-month SAS program that includes a three-month paid internship. Tuition is $5,000, much of which may be recouped through the internship.

The supply of SAS positions shows no signs of drying up; it's more likely to continue its upward trend over the next few years. SAS Institute grossed $750 million in 1997, up 15 percent from 1996. But that's nothing new for SAS, which has been enjoying an unbroken run of double-digit revenue growth for 21 years. And given the glowing reports from those who use SAS software, that trend is likely to continue providing opportunities to contractors for years to come.