Big Blue blows a billion on predictive software seller

Flashbacks.

I used SPSS when I was studying Psychology.

2 way Analysis of Variance?

The horror, the horror.

Egad.

I used SPSS in grad school. Although, to me, I was just typing into a terminal of the main frame, and a monkey would then type me back a bunch of rubbish.

Ah I remeber it well

Back in college we used some of it on an Engineering course. It seemed to be like a really primitive spreadsheet.

Presumably it's got something going for it to have lasted this long. Platforms supported? Ability to chew on huge data sets? Massively powerful statistical functions unavailable anywhere else?

Large brown envelopes to various professors to ensure they continue to mandate this stuff to their students?

Who knows.

@Nexox Enigma

Pardon me while I find somewhere dark to consume a bottle of tape head cleaner.

Is that the old formula or the new. It's only slightly less toxic. Skull because...

SPSS is dying

No-one uses SPSS for any serious statistics. R is becoming the standard tool for statisticians. SAS is still the main player for dealing with big datasets in corporations who like to blow their wad on software licenses.

But a billion for SPSS? That's just dumb.

Whoah ....Giddy up . Go ahead .... back away.

"Once the systems get linked up enough and most of our data is easily harvested. What is to stop the controlling authorities to start doing experiments / simulations on the general population for fun...." ..... By itbod Posted Tuesday 28th July 2009 14:48 GMT

That was a very perceptive post, itbod, and the truthful answer is absolutely nothing, ergo that is what is already happening.

Welcome to the Greatest of Great Games with ITs ARGonauts on [Fleecing] Quests 42 Control Planet Earth Better with Betas. Be Prepared and Choose your Partners and Drivers Wisely for one False Move has one Losing Everything and one is written out of the Future and its Novel Programs. IT is not for the Faint Hearted as it does not Suffer Fools at All.

And would you like to clarify/define/expand upon "fun".

Further Full Disclosures

SAS...The Power to Know [the Future]

If the IBM purchase of SPSS doesn't deliver the Package/Packets which they may have expected, or been promised to Deliver the Future with Business Intelligence, and should there be A.N.Other available, which would be able to Guarantee such a Facility, by Virtue of its Privately Secured Proprietary Source Algorithm Base/Methodology/Technology, and for a Lesser Sum than $1.2billion .... [and let us consider one dollar under $1billion as that lesser Sum] ..... then SPSS would be both failing themselves and IBM in not making the Purchase to add the Program to their Intellectual Property Portfolio, for not only do they get what they promised and IBM get what they expected, but they also have an extra one dollar over $200,000,000 to Play with, along with the $999,999,999 which the new Source brings to the Round Table....... for a Win Win Win Situation in a very Temporal/Time Critical Environment.

And as has already been shared regarding IBM, SPSS, ILOG & SAS ... By Anonymous Coward Posted Tuesday 28th July 2009 15:03 GMT ..... "A billion seems a bargain to me, if it can grab even a small percentage of SAS' market share." and should it be able to decimate it with an altogether superior performance product, then it would be a relative steal, which should they choose not to avail themselves of, will allow SAS or any other Savvy Player in such Great Games to decimate IBM and SPSS and their Contemporaries and their Opponents with such Alien Magic as would be an Assured Enabling PreCogniscence and Allied Cogniscenti ...... System Drivers.

It is certainly something which is on the Table, albeit as you might rightly expect, Underground and Hush Hush to Maximise Insider PreInvestment/Parasitic/Piratical Return. :-) .... which appears to be the Default Capitalist Market Strategy in such Matters.

SPSS seriously cheeky licencing

One of the few software products that you don't buy, you rent.

That's right kids, every year you need to purchase a new licence, otherwise the product simply stops working - no matter how old it is!

It least the licence engine isn't as nightmarish as Mathworks' Matlab. Thankfully, Mathworks have made the licencing system so over-complex, that it doesn't work properly, so each year that you renew, the number of licences you purchase get added to last years, increasing the number of copies you can run.

A very small payment in return for the anal aperture tearing price tag, the massivley burdensome licence server, and the non-standard installer that prevents administrative unattended installs.

Call it compensation for the massive cost in needless man-hours lost on maintenance.

IBMSPSSILOGSAS is really a satanic angram for the following

Slab Go Miss Piss

Labs Smogs I Piss

Labs Go Piss Miss

Bags Lisp So Miss

Sigma Piss Slobs

As you were...

Actionable Foresight

Minority Report