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1. SAS Enterprise Miner is too difficult to install.
Response: The installation of SAS Enterprise Miner Desktop for Resellers has been significantly simplified. Specifically, SAS Enterprise Miner Desktop for Resellers comes on a single DVD with a step-by-step installation process. The installation process walks you through a few simple steps and installs all the products that you need to run on your Windows workstation. It takes about 45 to 60 minutes for a complete installation. |
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2. SAS Enterprise Miner is too expensive.
Comments: It is important to understand what "too expensive" means to this prospect. It is likely that the prospect is not aware of the pricing for the SAS Enterprise Miner Desktop for Resellers solution. Also, it is important to focus on the value that the solution provides to the customer rather than the cost of the solution. Work with the prospect to understand what they do today and how they do it. Then focus on the key benefits of building models using SAS Enterprise Miner, i.e., enabling them to build more models, enabling them to spend time on deeper analysis rather than coding, the ability to apply a richer set of algorithms and compare various algorithms very easily, self-documenting resulting in easier updates to models in the future so that others can help maintain the models, etc. |
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3. I can write code faster in SAS/STAT than using the GUI in SAS Enterprise Miner.
Comments: If the prospect has a lot of macros written that he/she reuses frequently, then it's possible that he or she can be very efficient. But this also creates a significant risk to organizations because prospects maintain intellectual property in their heads, and the company can be held hostage as a result. Also, if the contact is the only person in the organization that does data mining, then it's not as critical for him or her to share the code with others. The focus of SAS Enterprise Miner is to enable users to spend more time doing the analysis and less time with coding. Users raise this objection usually because they are averse to change and worried about job security. In other words, if the coding skills are no longer a critical factor to building models, then the user might not be needed or could be easily replaced. However, the company should be concerned that if users were to leave, then a lot of intellectual property would walk out with them. |
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4. I don't need all the algorithms in SAS Enterprise Miner — I only need some of them, and I dont want to pay for all of them.
Comments: Unlike the past where users applied one type of approach to their data to uncover
insights, today's sophisticated data miners try many different techniques and approaches in order to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. As a result, any product that offers you limited capabilities and/or charges you for add-on modules is limiting the data miner's ability to take your business to the next level. Also, if you compare all the capabilities that SAS Enterprise Miner Desktop for Resellers provides to our competitors' products with the same depth of capabilities, the pricing is very competitive. |
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