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... apps like SAS, SPSS, ...

For what it's worth, you have SAS for Linux already. They don't make the product easy to find, and there are a lot of deadlinks, but it works well -- if you can get it. Also, SPSS for Linux has been available for a while, too.

So you can let the researchers work on whichever platform makes the most productive, be it OS X or Linux. But the real boost is for the system maintenance team. Getting rid of the last of the Windows cruft from the LAN means that all those hours spent coddling and repairing M$ junk can be instead directed towards improving the computing environment. Providing better service is a better goal than just trying to keep things running long enough to get work done.

For a little more info see SPSS' Richmond PD info. Along with the article never mentioning the actual software used I assume they used the "payday" example because it is something that everyone can easily identify.

Okay, once more, with feeling: Linux is a toy. A powerful toy. An-almost-infinitely-customizable toy. But a toy nonetheless. I say this not as a troll or as flamebait; I say this because the people who use it, use it because they enjoy fiddling around with config files. Even if they actually like using it--and of course they do--using it requires one to fiddle with config files in ways that one would only know how to do if he enjoyed learning about such things. I'm sorry, but that is a tiny subset of the computer-using public. Most people don't want to fiddle with things to get them to work or use weird, off-brand knockoff software developed by groups of people who do it as a hobby. It is a toy.

Invariably, this comment upsets a lot of people and there's the obligatory "It runs the internet!" and "dont be rediculous i use it for my business!" (sic) replies. But none of that means it's not a toy. OpenOffice or Crossover Office do not a real computer--as most people actually use them--make. Most businesses do more than type and make spreadsheets.

Here is a quick list of software my parents' company, for whom I do IT from time to time, uses. These are industry-standard applications:

PowerClaim

Xactimate

Internet Explorer (for dealing with the head office)

Without these, their business does not run.

Now, let's go to the applications I use for my job (university lecturer / researcher):

SPSS

RUMM 2020

BILOG MG

Facets

DIFPack

Micrograde

Do you see a single item in that list with Linux compatibility? Most of them don't even have Mac versions. Most of these are heavy-duty software packages designed to handle specific tasks for business and/or research, and they are mostly only available for Windows. I'm sure that in the case of the stats packages, I could find something that could limp along and provide most of the functionality under Linux, but why would I do that? Everyone uses these packages, and that means if I send my SPSS .sav file over to a research partner in another country, he'll be able to open it and see if he sees what I see in the data.

None of these packages are a hassle to install. All of them work on virtually any Windows system. Windows is not a toy. It works well with little fuss, it has unrivaled developer support, and you can play Battlefield 2 on it.

Don't get me wrong; I like Linux. I have Ubuntu running on my laptop here at home. I love installing software off the net. I like some of the FOSS apps better than their proprietary counterparts. I enjoy that sense of calm you get from knowing that, if you ever get wifi to work without getting a new PCMCIA card that has better driver support and have it hanging off the side (banging into everything all the time), you could use this thing forever, free of all the problems associated with having software on your computer--because you'll never really have any. Until the argument for Linux isn't centered on how little you'll miss Windows, and goes to all the really great software available for it, Linux will remain as it is--a toy.

See, you don't install Linux to get things done; you install Linux to install Linux. It is an end in and of itself. That is not true for installations of Windows, and not as true for installs of MacOS. Those OSes are for people who have something other than codemonkeying to do; Linux is for the codemonkeys who do most of their work in a text editor anyway so why bother having access to anything else? Further, th

http://www.spss.com/spss_mac/

Surprised there is so little quality statistical software that will run natively on Linux. I know there's R and PSPP, but I'd really like to see SPSS or even Statistica on Linux.

Anyone relying on Excel for real statistical work is brain damaged. If it's your management, I'd put them out of their misery. If you need it to integrate it with excel, integrate it with something else.

SPSS has been around since 1968. Check out the very fascinating history of this program here. BTW, I still have a card deck with the original Fortran source code, from 1971, when I ran it on an IBM 1130 minicomputer. Kermit was born c. 1980, and in contrast is "just a kid." Possibly the truly oldest continuously supported software -- which is open source -- is the Fortran IV Scientific Subroutine Library (I have a copy dating back to 1962, which was based on the Fortran II library, which is presumably older but no longer supported). The library was eventually codified as an ANSI standard in 1977. A capsule history is at fit.edu. You can access an archive of the Fortran source code at Harwell's..

Or you could simply use the Mac OS X version [spss.com] of SPSS.

So, as I have a doctorate in microbiology, I now have a legitimate excuse for indulging in paranoid fantasies?

But seriously, the conspiracy angle has a bit of flaw -- while the former Biopreparat (Soviet biological warware program) scientist Valdimir Pasechnik is dead, Kanatjan Alibekov (or Ken Alibek as he likes to call himself these days) who was nearly at the top of the Biopreparat hierarchy, is still very much alive -- wouldn't he be the obvious target of any conspiracy? Or, wait, he would be, but that would be too obvious. Anyway, gotta go, someone's knocking on my door (which is a bit odd, as none of my friends get up this early on weekends...)