Quickly how the tide turns:
http://www.intelligententerprise.com/blog/archives/2009/03/sas_gets_with_t.html
A January New York Times article on the R open-source statistical programming environment catalysed a change in attitude at SAS, the largest independent BI and analytics vendor. In just one month, SAS's position swerved from disdain -- the Times quoted Anne H. Milley, SAS director of technology product marketing as opining, "We have customers who build engines for aircraft. I am happy they are not using freeware when I get on a jet." -- to embrace with an admission that "both R and SAS are here to stay, and finding ways to make them work better with each other is in the best interests of our customers." And that's good news, for SAS and for R.