Slightly off topic news about SPSS

[Alan Mead]

Sorry if news about SPSS is not of interest to everyone, but Yahoo is 
reporting that IBM will acquire SPSS:

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090728/ap_on_hi_te/us_ibm_spss_acquisition

What caught my eye is that both SPSS and IBM describe SPSS as a business 
analytic tool.  As a psychologist, I've felt that SPSS no longer cares 
about serving my needs, and I fear that IBM's acquisition will only 
accelerate that.  Certainly the price of the software is growing beyond 
what's reasonable for my to pay to analyze my experimental data.

So, I've seen a lot more users on this list over the past year and I 
would hazard a guess that if PSPP is ready for general purpose use in a 
year, you might get a big influx of new users fleeing SPSS.

-Alan

--
Alan D. Mead, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Institute of Psychology
Scientific Adviser, Center for Research and Service
Illinois Institute of Technology
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The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all 
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-- James Branch Cabell, The Silver Stallion, 1926