Statistical Packages

SPSS

Statistical Package for Social Science

Developed as a programming language for conducting statistical analysis Uses graphical and syntactical interface Can perform simple percentage to complex analysis Can handle simple data, binary data, logarithmic data etc., Has powerful data management function and programming language

History
Multinational software company In 1968 SPSS Statistical software system was Developed by H.Nie, C.Hadlai Hull and Dale bent, Three Stanford University graduated In 1975 SPSS incorporated with Headquarter at Chicago In 1984 SPSS/PC+ Introduced for MS-DOS

Uses
Widely used by Market research Health research Survey Educational research Government Marketing organisation Others

Modules
Follows module system SPSS Programmability extension SPSS Data validation SPSS Regression module SPSS advanced module SPSS Classification trees SPSS Tables SPSS exact tests SPSS Trends SPSS Cojoints SPSS complex samples

Features
Accessible via Pull down menu & Programmable with 4GL command syntax language Complex applications can only be programmed Pull down menu will also generate syntax Macro language can be used to write command language subroutines Python programmability extension can access the information in the data dictionary and data and dynamically build command syntax programs

Data
Places constraints on internal file structure Datasets has 2dimesional table structure Rows represents cases Columns represent measurement Numeric and string can be entered Data processing occurs sequentially

Input
Graphical user interface Data view-spread sheet view Variable view-metadata dictionary Can be toggled Input Manually edited, Through data entry software, computer assisted personal interviewing, scanning, OCR, OMR, direct capture from online questionnaire

Output
Can be read and write to external data base tables through ODBC and SQL Output in proprietary file format (*.SPV file) Can be read by stand alone reader Can be exported to text or ms word Can be captured as PDF, XLS, HTML, XML

Analysis
Can do
Descriptive statistics Bivariate statistics Linear regression Identifying Groups

Strengths
Ease of use User friendly Covers most routine analysis Presentation quality University site license

Weakness
Positioning graphics Speed differs Too easy Learning curve Lacks many Regression analysis Difficult to edit output Problems with importing and exporting data Need to know statistical terminology

Minitab

History
Developed by Pennsylvania state university team of researchers in 1972 Began as a light version of OMNITAB, a statistical program of NIST Originally developed to assist faculties to teach statistics Second most popular statistical package Used in teaching and research Used in Six sigma, CMMI and in other statistical based process improvement methods

Features
Available in DOS, Macintosh, UNIX, Windows etc., Student edition is distributed internationally Ease to learn and ease to use Has pull down menus and dialog box Input- through minitab data window or imported Macros allow creation of custom operation Ease transition from macintosh to windows

Analysis
Can do Descriptive statistics, test of association, test of difference, control charts, tables etc., Histogram, box plots, regression plots, scattegrams, bar charts

SAS

SAS
Statistical analysis system Provided by SAS Institute Inc., Can do
Data entry, retrieval, management and mining Statistical analysis Report writing and graphics Business planning, forecasting and decision support Operational research and project management Quality improvement Applications development Data warehousing Remote computing

Used in
IT management Human resource management Customer relationship management Business intelligence Manufacturing Telecommunication Government Environmental Research Biotechnology Retail

Features
GUI exist as front end to facilitate generaton of SAS program SAS components are used through programming interface SAS Programs- consist of Data step, Procedure step, macro language Allows sql programming Macro programming extension available

Read and write many different file formats Process data in many formats 4GL programming language Built-in statistical and random number function Comprehensive data and time handling function SAS ACCESS module allows communication with data through ODBC Can process files containing millions of rows Integrated development environment

STATA

Stata
General purpose statistical software package Created by Stata Corp in 1985 Sold as a complete package, not in modules Used by business and academic world Capabilities include
Data management Statistical analysis Graphics Simulations Custom programming

Features
Fast, accurate and easy to use Broad suite of statistical capabilities Complete data management facilities Publication-quality graphics Responsive and extensible Matrix programming Mata is integral part Cross platform compatibility Complete documentations

S Plus

S-Plus
For professional statisticians and data analyst GUI pull down menus and dialog box Extensive programming through Object oriented S language S Language developed by researchers from AT& T Bell labs Flexibility in user defined functions Customization of environment Extensive graphics and hard copy capability Runs on windows and Unix based platform

 Can generate Random data from 20 different distributional types 12 different hypothesis testing
Including Students t test, wilcoxin test etc.,

Linear, non-linear project pursuit regression Multivariate analysis

Including graphical methods, cluster analysis, discriminant analysis

Time series analysis

MATLAB

MATLAB
Interactive computing environment For scientific and statistical data analysis and visualization Basic object Matrix Numerical analysis like signal processing, image processing and statistical analysis can be performed on matrix No programming Different Version available for UNIX and PC platform

Features
Functions are written in M-file function M-files can be modified and programmed Recent addition MATLAB C compiler and C-Math library Toolbox collection of m-file functions for implementing algorithms and functions in an specific area of interest 2D and 3D visualization of data mesh plot, contour plot, image plot, histograms Has graphical objects allowing users to create GUIs in algorithm packages