SPSS Expands Predictive Analytics OfferingSPSS Expands Predictive Analytics Offering

Predictive analytics software developer SPSS Inc. Monday debuted SPSS 14.0, a release of its flagship product offering new analysis functions, improved data-management capabilities, and improved links to third-party data sources and programming languages.

SPSS 14.0 allows users to simultaneously open and read files from multiple data systems, including those with different file types, in a single SPSS session, rather than be restricted to one data set at a time, as was the case with previous versions of the software. A new SPSS Data Validation module eliminates manual data checks.

The SPSS Trends forecasting application now automatically chooses which forecasting model fits the variables in an analysis. The software also offers extended structural equation modeling options and improved reporting capabilities, including new ways to build charts and graphs. And SPSS 14.0 is open to other programming languages, such as Python, for building analytical applications.

Howard Barkan, a research methodologist and biostatistician at the Kaiser Permanente health-plan organization, has used SPSS since the early 1970s for a number of research applications, including analyzing survey and health-care economics data and clinical trial results. Barkan has been working with the new release for about six weeks.

"It was easier to get data into and out of other applications," Barkan says of SPSS 14.0. He says setting up the data for analysis is easier, and it's simpler to link the software to graphic display systems. "SPSS handles about 98% or 99% of the analysis I do," he says.

The base price of SPSS is $1,499 for a single user license. The new release will be available in late August.