1. Introduction & Historical Context IBM SPSS Statistics (originally Statistical Package for the Social Sciences ) is a software suite designed for interactive or batch statistical analysis. First released in 1968 by Norman H. Nie, Dale H. Bent, and C. Hadlai Hull, it was acquired by IBM in 2009. While its name retains the "Social Sciences" origin, SPSS is now widely used across healthcare, government, market research, education, and data mining.