We have a few Stata users in LIR. I'm not a stats guy, but my  
impression is that Stata is preferred over SAS and SPSS. We still  
have some SPSS users here, but I think that is due to inertia.

It is good to hear about the Grad plan pricing, we might be  
interested in that in the future.

Another stats package we use here is Minitab. It doesn't have the  
advanced features of Stata (or maybe even SPSS?), but it is easier to  
use and creates graphs easily. The Computer Store has a site license  
(annual renewal, about $50 / copy?), we license it for our computer  
lab and use it in a few grad classes.

If you want to get in touch with our Stata-using stats prof, email me  
off list.

PS - SPSS has been somewhat problematic for the last two years.  
Sometimes it takes a couple of installs before it starts working.  
Then there was that licensing snafu last Fall.  And I seem to recall  
some bad results that magically fixed itself after a re-install of  
the same code.

On May 3, at 4:54 PM May 3, John Resotko wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I know the computer store offers both SAS and SPSS statistical  
> software
> packages.  Has anyone worked with Stata ( http://www.stata.com/ ) and
> does anyone have a site license for their department or college for  
> this
> software?  I'm interested to hear your experiences with the software,
> and how it stacks up against SPSS and SAS, both in terms of
> features/performance and pricing.  Any information you can provide  
> would
> be greatly appreciated.
>
> John A. Resotko