Data analysis software vendor SAS Institute Inc. today said company founder Jim Goodnight is handing over responsibility for most of its day-to-day operations to Andre Boisvert, who joined SAS in February and is now being named its president and chief operating officer.
"I have given just about everybody who works for me over to Andre," Goodnight said during a teleconference after the management change was announced. The 57-year-old Goodnight, who has run Cary, N.C.-based SAS since it began operations in 1976, remains as CEO and chairman. But only the company's human resources, finance and legal departments still report directly to him.
Boisvert, 46, will now oversee research and development, marketing, sales, technical support, information systems and other departments at SAS. He originally was hired as vice president of business development and strategic investments, a job in which he managed the company's investment strategy and two operations: iBiomatics LLC, a SAS spin-off that designs Web portals for biomedical research companies, and DataFlux Corp., a data-cleansing software vendor that SAS acquired in June.
SAS surpassed $1 billion in revenue last year, and Boisvert said the privately held company has set targets of reaching $2 billion by 2003 and $3 billion by 2005. He added that SAS plans to go public at some point during the next five years, but he wouldn't specify when that's likely to happen. Earlier this year, SAS announced that it was aiming to go public by late 2001.
For now, Goodnight said, SAS is focusing on upgrading its analysis software to be fully operational on 64-bit systems and on targeting Web-site data mining as an area in which to expand sales. Boisvert added that SAS plans to stick with its current software rental model instead of shifting to outright sales of the products.
Before joining SAS, Boisvert worked as a special general partner at venture-capital firm Southeast Interactive Technology Funds and as a consultant to Microsoft Corp. concerning its Windows NT operating system and its program for application service providers. He also has worked as senior vice president of worldwide marketing at Oracle Corp. and spent 13 years in various positions at IBM Corp., among other previous jobs.