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SPSS Inc. Announces New Version of Dimensions Market Research Platform
Source: www.spss.com
Copyright SPSS, Inc. 2004
08/03/04

This is a dated announcement. The material in this announcement could be superceded by more current announcements.

Focusing on the end user experience, updates to SPSS Dimensions™ include integrated telephone surveying, expanded data accessibility and enhanced survey design

CHICAGO, 07/27/04 — SPSS Inc. (NASDAQ: SPSSE), the leading provider of tools for the market and survey research industry and of predictive analytics, today announced the immediate availability of the latest version of SPSS Dimensions™, a comprehensive application suite for survey design, data collection, data management, analysis and publishing of survey research results.

“Leveraging SPSS Inc.’s market research technology has helped us work far more effectively and efficiently,” said Laura Allen, data strategist at DVC Turquoise. “By implementing SPSS Dimensions, we have already saved two man days per month and significantly improved the quality and accuracy of our research. Ultimately, we are much more confident in the analysis we are providing to our clients.”

“Dimensions is a valuable resource, as it has enabled our organization to analyze the attitudes of our customers and share that information with product planning managers across continents,” said Hennes Fischer, product planning consultant, Yamaha Motor Europe N.V. “With added control over data analysis and survey design, the new version of Dimensions will continue to provide us with a rich platform for developing and deploying customized surveys.”

The enhancements to Dimensions support a broad range of end-to-end survey and market research capabilities that will benefit market research firms, commercial organizations and survey researchers in the public sector and academia. This latest release includes updates and enhancements to mrInterview™, which provides survey researchers with an end-to-end solution for fielding and managing Web research projects; mrStudio™, which enables customers to manage survey research data using efficient scripting; and mrTables™, which helps users build, share and interact with tables using a Web browser.

“With a thirty-four year history of scientific research, our organization required a powerful platform that could support complex research projects,” said Andrea Bystran, computer services director at the Research Institute on Addictions at SUNY Buffalo. “While we previously employed a patchwork of data collection technology, we selected SPSS Dimensions for its comprehensive data analysis capabilities, its interoperability with other software and its ability to seamlessly deploy survey research data through a variety of channels. An end-to-end platform, Dimensions will benefit all of our researchers, no matter if they are gathering data in the field, through telephone questionnaires or via online surveys.”

The latest version of mrInterview includes a new CATI (Computer-Assisted Telephone Interview) option which provides users with management and reporting facilities for outbound calls. Additionally, mrInterview offers vibrant HTML interview templates and complete out-of-the-box surveys, complete with an expansive collection of potential questions from its Sample Library, enabling survey researchers to quickly develop and deploy online questionnaires.

Alongside mrStudio’s enhanced scripting, debugging and data connection capabilities, the back-end functionality is now available as a server-side solution. The new Dimensions Component Pack, which enables survey researchers to centralize the execution of Dimensions scripting tasks, will benefit large organizations focused on centralized data management and reporting, as well as those conducting batch processing and overnight reporting on a regular basis.

mrTables boasts several enhancements that provide users with added control over both data analysis and the presentation of results, including the ability to create new variables. Additionally, enhanced filters enable survey researchers to gain deeper insights from survey results. These capabilities are critical to users attempting to separate and analyze sub-sets of larger respondents pools.

Other Dimensions products include mrPaper™, which enables survey researchers to create paper surveys easily and efficiently; mrScan™, which automatically prepares paper surveys for scanning; and mrTranslate™, which facilitates survey researchers’ ability to manage multilingual survey projects. The SPSS MR Data Model, which is at the core of the Dimensions platform, employs open, industry-standard technologies that allow users to create their own research methodology.

“With the latest release of Dimensions, SPSS is not only addressing the needs of sophisticated market research firms, but the survey research requirements of commercial, academic and public sector organizations,” said Richard Kottler, vice president, Survey Applications Business Center, SPSS Inc. “Dimensions excels as a customizable solution encompassing the entire research process by delivering unequaled research capabilities and results to all levels of users.”