Hector Maletta wrote: > > A nimble company is being gulped down by a plodding beast. Being devoured > by > a dinosaur is not my idea of progress, or a sensible way of staying on > top. > Somebody in this thread suggested this is better than being acquired by > Microsoft: I doubt it. Whatever your opinion about MS, the Oakland guys > belong in a higher rung of the evolutionary ladder. > > > > Should we worry? Should we just worry or rather run for our lives? Should > I > start seriously studying SAS or Stata? > > > > Hector > > >

There have been many newsgroup & mailing list discussions of the relative merits of SPSS, SAS, and Stata over the years. But in many cases, folks just sing the praises of their favorite package, and cast aspersions at the competitors. And the criticisms of the other packages are often based on woeful ignorance of those packages. I think the technical report by the UCLA Statistical Consulting Group is a refreshing exception to that rule, however. As far as I can tell, it was complied by folks with some experience with all 3 packages, and with no particular axes to grind.

http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/technicalreports/ -- see report #1

I have Stata (v10), but thus far have not made the switch--i.e., I use Stata for things that it can do and SPSS cannot do (short of some kludgy work-around). My main reasons for not switching yet are:

1. Because of institutional decisions, I have to use SPSS in a course I teach. 2. Nearly all of my colleagues & collaborators use SPSS. 3. I have a lot of implicit knowledge of SPSS that would (to some degree) be chucked out the window if I switched.

Those reasons are not in any particular order. But, I suspect that if our institutions had site licenses and support for Stata comparable to those for SPSS, a lot more folks would consider switching.

----- -- Bruce Weaver bweaver@lakeheadu.ca http://sites.google.com/a/lakeheadu.ca/bweaver/ "When all else fails, RTFM."

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