Tuesday, September 01, 2009

SPSS not currently supported on Snow Leapord

Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" (the just released current version) does not support SPSS 17.1 (the current version we have at SJSU.) SPSS has been renamed PASW Statistics. Reportedly, SPSS/PASW Statistics is not scheduled to be supported in Snow Leopard until PASW Statistics 18 is released. I don't anticipate we will have PASW Statistics 18 until sometime in Spring 2010, if past precedent holds. SPSS/PASW Statistics system requirements are pretty well spelled out. We get new versions of SPSS/PASW Statistics well after they are released. SPSS shipped SPSS 17 to SJSU less than 6 months ago.

We do ask our customers to check the system requirements of the software, which we show them in writing, before we sell them install media. We will try to be even more vigilant about doing this.

This is not unusual. SPSS/PASW Statistics is not usually quick to support new operating systems, and PASW Statistics is not big enough for Apple to tailor its OS software to work with it.

We do not currently support Snow Leopard at the SJSU help desk. We do not even have it yet. I anticipate we will be (officially) supporting Mac OS X 10.6 and Windows 7 in the Spring. But, that is not my decision to make!

BTW - I suggest folks not install new operating systems on production computers until they are at least 10.x.3 for Macs or SP 1 for Windows OS versions. Then, they should only install a new OS if they have a business need to, and they are sure their applications are compatible. IMHO the main use of an OS is to allow users to access applications and applications to efficiently access system resources, the rest is fluff. The best thing an OS can do, in my opinion, is to get out of my way! (But then, I liked the spartan Windows 2000 interface.)

BTW #2 - I am going to be out of the office until September 8. If help desk clients want issues addressed as quickly as possible, please do one of the following:

  • Call us at (408) 924-2377 during our normal business hours. Our business hours are the only times we are open and/or are able to address issues. Our business hours are here.
  • Or, go to our ticket portal and submit an incident ticket into our ticketing system. Our ticket portal is here.

Have a great holiday weekend:
~Steve

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