Re: to upgrade or not to upgrade

[Timothy Teo]

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----- Original Message -----
From: "Weeks, Kyle" <[hidden email]>
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.spssx-l
To: <[hidden email]>
Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2006 11:57 PM
Subject: Re: to upgrade or not to upgrade

> Greetings everyone,
>
> This started off with a question by Angela of whether or not to upgrade
> from 11.0 to 14.0.  Angela, I will let you decide for yourself whether or
> not to upgrade.  As I stated in a previous email, there are a lot of
> benefits to upgrading, including new functionality, features and user
> interface improvements (see
> http://www.spss.com/software_version/index.cfm?product=base).  Angela's
> original question has lead to some other issues, let me address some of
> those issues.
>
> *       Yearly releases - It is correct we do attempt to release a new
> version of SPSS every year.  We feel that this is the best way to get
> requested functionality out to our user base in a regular, timely manner.
> Contrary, to one of the responses this is not meant to cater towards a
> "business audience" this is done very much with academics in mind as well.
> In fact, businesses actually are much slower to upgrade due to
> logistical/compliance issues - in actuality, they cannot (and do not) keep
> up with current releases.
> *       The feature sets in the new releases -   It was felt that the
> features sets have been catered toward business rather than academic
> audiences.  As you know, SPSS is used in a wide variety or organizations.
> We try to balance the feature set so it will appeal to a wide variety of
> audiences.  We also have some features that are developed primarily based
> on requests from the academic community, such as General Linear Models for
> Complex Samples and Logistic Regression for Complex Samples.
> *       The new licensing technology - The old technology that we used to
> use was from a company that no longer exists.  If we needed someone to fix
> a bug or to add a new feature, that was impossible.  The new technology,
> provides us with a platform to provide new, requested features to the
> software, such as network commuter licenses and priority settings for
> network licenses.   With regard to the problems that Jan is having, I have
> asked Tech Support to follow up with directly Jan.
> *       Difficulties with recent releases - If you have problems with
> current versions of SPSS, please contact SPSS Technical Support
> ([hidden email]) to report those problems.  They are in the best
> position to diagnose and escalate the problems.  We are committed to
> releasing quality products that meet customer needs.
> *       Multiple versions on the same machine - This is a supported
> configuration.  This is NOT a coincidence.  We go out of our way to
> support this setup.
>
> Regards.
>
>
> Kyle Weeks, Ph.D.
> Director of Product Management, SPSS Product Line
> Product Management
> SPSS Inc.
> [hidden email]
> www.spss.com
> SPSS Inc. helps organizations turn data into insight through predictive
> analytics.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of
> Spousta Jan
> Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2006 2:56 AM
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: Re: to upgrade or not to upgrade
>
> No Antoon, I feel currently not very lucky with SPSS. It costs us
> usually 3 mandays to license a new version here after they introduced
> the new licensing policy.
>
> And you are true that keeping two versions on one computer is not always
> possible.
>
> As I recall now, my copy of SPSS 12 is probably somehow hacked to work
> after its expiration. I do not feel much much qualms of conscience
> because of it - we are paying the fees and it would be otherwise not
> possible to use the software. But it is really not an ideal situation
> and I have no such problems with other software I use.
>
> Greetings
>
> Jan
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of
> Antoon Smulders
> Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2006 9:46 AM
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: Re: to upgrade or not to upgrade
>
> Hi Jan
>
> You are a lucky man, because I cannot have two versions on my computer.
> We have a yearly license for a single user but we would need two
> autorisation codes every year, one for each version. I don't think SPSS
> will give that to us every year.
> Besides: it may be a matter of time to have problems because of two
> conficting versions of the same software. A lot of software explicitly
> demands that you uninstall older versions or does it by itself when
> installing the newer version. So far that is not the case, but does SPSS
> guarantee that?
>
> Antoon Smulders
>
> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
> Van: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] Namens
> Spousta Jan
> Verzonden: donderdag 23 maart 2006 8:42
> Aan: [hidden email]
> Onderwerp: Re: to upgrade or not to upgrade
>
> Hi,
>
> There are two advices for people seeking reliability in SPSS:
>
> 1) Do not upgrade directly to the version XX.0 - wait for XX.01 and
> similar. Because the fresh version number usualy means more bugs.
>
> 2) Let an older version of SPSS live on your computer. I have here SPSS
> 12 and currently I am working with it, because the instalation of SPSS
> 14 destroyed even SPSS 13 here and I was not able to go through the
> licension validation procedure for 14 once again as I am behind a strong
> firewall with much security policies and the licensing software was not
> able to connect directly with the SPSS server. Yes I cursed SPSS's new
> licensing mechanisms hundred times - but I am still able to work on my
> duties.
>
> Greetings
>
> Jan
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of
> Michael Kruger
> Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2006 6:27 PM
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: Re: to upgrade or not to upgrade
>
> Mark,
>
> I agree whole-heartedly with your commentary. I told Angela to stick
> with 11.0 since it will continue to work without annual upgrades and the
> bugs that go along with them. I am a statistician at a major medical
> school and for years ran data analysis with both SPSS and BMDP. BMDP was
> subsequently bought and killed off by SPSS.
>
> SPSS's major strengths are ease of use, especially with pull down
> menus, data handling capacity, and  extensive online support via forums
> such as this one. But the frequent upgrades, incompatability of output
> files with earier releases and buggy features are a real headache. We'r
> sort of locked in since it is used in a variety of courses but I am
> considering switching to S Plus for the courses that I teach.
>
> M. Kruger
>