People generally ask the following questions at analytics forums :
Job Market
If we look at the number of jobs posted on Indeed.com (World's most popular job search site), Excel has topped the list with more than 11K jobs, with SAS coming in second with 1.1K jobs. The data are presented in figure below (collected April 20,2013).
By Job Function
Let's dig into this job market data and study popularity of these tools by Job Function.
- Why use SPSS or SAS when excel has great data analysis functions?
- Advantage of SAS over SPSS?
- Which of these tools is the best for data analysis?
- Which of these tools is the most popular in analytics field?
- Is SAS worth learning?
- Will SPSS help me fetch a good job in analytics industry?
Comparison of Excel, SPSS and SAS
Excel
|
SPSS
|
SAS
|
|
Maximum
number of rows
|
Approx 1.048 million
|
Approx. 2.15 billion
|
Approx. 2.15 billion
|
Maximum
number of columns
|
16,383
|
32,767
|
32,767
|
Price
|
Cheap
|
Expensive
|
More expensive than
SPSS
|
License
|
Perpetual
|
Perpetual
|
Year on year
|
General
Use
|
Easy to learn and use
|
Easy to learn and use
|
Hard to learn and use
|
Typical user
|
Non programmer
|
Non programmer
|
Programmer
|
Statistical
Analysis
|
Very limited
|
Advanced Analysis
|
Advanced Analysis
|
Data
Manipulation
|
Ok
|
Powerful
|
Very Powerful
|
Macro
Programming
|
Powerful (VBA)
|
Ok
|
Very Powerful
|
Documentation
(Help Guide) |
Ok
|
Excellent
|
Good
|
Popularity
|
Most widely used tool
|
Popular in market
research field
|
Popular in data mining
and business modeling
|
Job Market
If we look at the number of jobs posted on Indeed.com (World's most popular job search site), Excel has topped the list with more than 11K jobs, with SAS coming in second with 1.1K jobs. The data are presented in figure below (collected April 20,2013).
By Job Function
Let's dig into this job market data and study popularity of these tools by Job Function.
SAS
SAS is mostly used in business analytics and intelligence industry. IT Software functional area comes second in the list, followed by KPO/BPO, clinical research and finance etc.
Popularity in Social Media
LinkedIn.com
Microsoft Excel group has maximum number of members registered as compared to SAS and SPSS groups. The data are presented in the figure below (collected April 20,2013)
Facebook.com
Microsoft Excel page received maximum number of likes as compared to SAS and SPSS pages. The data are presented in the figure below (collected April 20,2013)
SPSS
SPSS is mostly used in business analytics and intelligence industry. IT Software functional area comes second in the list, followed by KPO/BPO, finance and others. Others include Sales, Retail, Marketing, Logistics etc.
Excel
Excel is mostly used in finance industry. KPO/BPO industry comes second in the list, followed by IT software, business analytics and others. Others include HR,Retail, Marketing, Supply Chain, Logistics etc
LinkedIn.com
Microsoft Excel group has maximum number of members registered as compared to SAS and SPSS groups. The data are presented in the figure below (collected April 20,2013)
Facebook.com
Microsoft Excel page received maximum number of likes as compared to SAS and SPSS pages. The data are presented in the figure below (collected April 20,2013)
Share Share Tweet