In 1968, Norman H. Nie, C. Hadlai (Tex) Hull and Dale H. Bent, three young men from disparate professional backgrounds, developed a software system based on the idea of using statistics to turn raw data into information essential to decision-making. These three innovators were pioneers in their field, visionaries who recognized early that data and how you analyze it is the driving force behind sound decision-making the DNA of intelligence.
This revolutionary statistical software system was called SPSS, which stood for the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. Nie, Hull and Bent developed SPSS out of the need to quickly analyze volumes of social science data gathered through various methods of research. The initial work on SPSS was done at Stanford University with the intention to make it available only for local consumption and not international distribution. Nie, a social scientist and Stanford doctoral candidate, represented the target audience and set the requirements; Bent, a Stanford University doctoral candidate in operations research, had the analysis expertise and designed the SPSS system file structure; and Hull, who had recently graduated from Stanford with a master of business administration degree, programmed.
As is typical of creations born of necessity, SPSS quickly caught on at universities throughout America and was soon in demand. It also became apparent to the developers of SPSS that they had more on their hands than an effective, efficient method of analyzing data; they had a viable product. In addition to their academic work, they now needed to consider pricing, shipping and other issues of commerce. They made sure that tapes of source code were sent to a small, but enthusiastic, user community, and continually maintained and enhanced SPSS.
After graduate school in 1969, Nie joined the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. The University of Chicago considered SPSS an important intellectual property and encouraged Nie's continuing development of the software system. Nie was successful in recruiting Hull to join him at the University of Chicago by encouraging him to take a position as the head of the university's Computation Center. Bent, a Canadian, decided not to join Nie and Hull in Chicago, and returned to Canada where he had an academic appointment at the University of Alberta. With Nie and Hull juggling both their academic and SPSS responsibilities, they continued to work diligently spreading the word and market appeal of SPSS.
The early success of SPSS was directly related to the quality and availability of the documentation that accompanied the software. McGraw-Hill published the first SPSS user's manual in 1970. Once the manual was available in college bookstores, demand for the program took off. Nie, Bent, and Hull received a royalty from sales of the manual but nothing from distribution of the program. In Nie's words, "It was like Gillette selling razors at cost and getting its profits from the blades."
With the sales of SPSS growing rapidly, the IRS determined in 1971 that SPSS was a small software company, which threatened the non-profit status of the University of Chicago within which SPSS had been housed. In 1975, SPSS incorporated and the two founders, Nie and Hull, neither of whom ever dreamed of running their own business, became the new company's executives. In spite of having no venture capital or financial backing, these two entrepreneurs secured for SPSS universal control of the academic marketplace due to the fact that SPSS was, and is, a portable code that enabled academic institutions to port it to most of the large mainframe computer systems, which included Control Data 6000 series, Burroughs large systems, Univac 1108, GE (subsequently Honeywell) large systems, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) large systems. SPSS also quickly became useful to the government and commercial markets. NASA began using SPSS for mean time between part failure on the space shuttle in the mid-1970s, and the National Forest Service used the software for incidences of injuries and bear encounters throughout the national parks system. Consumer products companies like Procter & Gamble and Anheuser-Busch also realized the value of SPSS in analyzing marketing research data.
Another factor contributing to the growth of the Company in the 1970s was Nie's, Hull's and their employees' effectiveness in understanding their customer base and staying ahead of the technology curve. In the mid-1980s they introduced the first mainframe statistical package to appear on a personal computer. The organization was first again in 1992 with the release of statistical products for the Microsoft Windows® personal computer operating system. SPSS Inc.'s reputation for thought leadership and innovators continued to grow with the onset of the Internet and the dawn of the Information Economy.
In 1992, Nie felt that it was time to turn over the day-to-day management of the Company to new leadership. Jack Noonan was appointed SPSS Inc.'s president and chief executive officer, and Nie continued as chairman of the board. Hull remained on the development side of the business where he is still currently involved in the development of SPSS and other key technologies. Many of the original employees of the company still remain employees of SPSS Inc.
Under Noonan's leadership SPSS Inc. continued to flourish by keeping in touch with its customers' needs and staying abreast of technological advances. The Company strengthened its leadership in the analytical marketplace through acquisitions that expanded the depth and breadth of its analytical offerings. Acquisitions included the addition of technologies such as data mining, a business intelligence suite for the IBM® eServer iSeries, Web analytics, sophisticated analytical components, a Web interface for online analytical processing (OLAP) technology and text mining. These technologies were introduced by SPSS Inc. to better capitalize on the expanding need for understanding ever-increasing volumes of data, and to support the company's mission to drive the widespread use of data in decision-making.
Over its thirty-seven year history, SPSS Inc. has evolved into an international corporation that delivers analytical tools and solutions to organizations around the globe. While customers and their industries vary, they share a common need to gather insight from the analysis of data. The Company's analytical technology from its early beginnings has enabled organizations to learn from the past, understand what is happening today and anticipate the future in order to manage it effectively.
#Source : http://www.spss.com/corpinfo/history.htm
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