I am a seasoned python,java,...other programmer having a (fairly advanced) mathematical education (so I do understand statistics and data mining, for example) . For various reasons I am thinking to switch to SAS/BI area (I am naming SAS because it might be, for me, a possible way to enter in BI). My question, for whoever might have an experience of both: is it, in BI current state, worth it? I mean, the days of big ideas in BI for business seem to be over (there are the APIs, managers think that they know what you can do with them), and my mathematical background might turn out to be superflous. Also, the big companies now have their data organized, have their BI procedures well established, and trying to analyze it from a different standpoint might not be what they want. Another difference is: while in Java etc. development one codes and codes and codes, I don't know if this is the case for BI; in fact, from what I read on the net, a BI (or OLAP, ...etc) developer, in a big organization, is usually in a state of standby, and does in fact little coding.

Any opinions, and in particular strong opinions, will be appreciated.