Altair (Nasdaq: ALTR), a global leader in computational science and artificial intelligence (AI), paid and fully satisfied the 2019 North Carolina judgment SAS Institute obtained against recently acquired World Programming (WPL), a UK-based technology company that specializes in data analytics software. Shortly thereafter on March 3, 2022, the North Carolina court lifted the injunction that had previously prevented WPL from licensing its solutions to new customers in the United States. Altair can now license WPL solutions to customers in the United States and around the world.
With its payment of the 2019 North Carolina judgment, Altair brought an end to nearly 12 years of litigation between SAS and WPL except for an appeal filed by SAS in the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit after a federal court in Texas ruled against SAS on its copyright and patent claims.
“WPL exemplifies our dedication to open architecture technology, which we believe is the best way people can harness innovation, improve products, and get the most from their work. Offering the flexibility to translate and interchange coding languages will allow organizations to build the foundation for more robust, powerful, and agile organizational processes,” said James R. Scapa, founder, and chief executive officer, Altair. “Now, companies in any industry across the globe can embrace open-source languages and technology while simultaneously leveraging the decades of investment they’ve put into the SAS language.”
WPL’s technology has been brought into the Altair suite of data analytics solutions and allows users to develop and execute software solutions in multi-language coding environments. Customers can utilize modern, open-source languages like Python, R, and SQL alongside established, legacy languages like the SAS language. These products include:
- Altair SLC: Runs programs written in the SAS language syntax without users needing to translate it or license third-party products. Also features a built-in SAS language compiler that runs the SAS language and SQL code and utilizes Python and R compilers to run Python and R code and exchange SAS language datasets, Pandas, and R data frames.
- Altair SmartWorks Hub: Gives users and organizations centralized governance and deployment services for every step in the data analytics lifecycle. Also lets organizations control access to data sources and deployed applications, stores audit logs about all user actions, and gives all users the power to handle tasks once considered the exclusive domain of information technology (IT) and DevOps teams.
- Altair Analytics Workbench: Empowers users to break down data silos, improve productivity, and reduce costs by giving teams a single platform where all users can connect, prepare, discover, and model any data. Also gives users an intuitive, drag-and-drop interface that lets them include Python, R, and SQL code into their SAS language programs – without needing to license third-party programs to run the SAS language programs.
