A beta version of Stata, the statistical software package, that will run on both Mac OS 8.6/9.x and OS X is now available. And the folks at Stata Corporation expect the OS X version to be finalized and released within the next few weeks. The Mac OS X upgrade for Stata will be free.
Stata offers complete statistical, graphical, and data-management capabilities and is fully programmable. Once the Mac OS X version is completed, current owners of Stata 7 may upgrade by downloading a updater. However, even if you don’t have Mac OS X yet, you can still try the beta version since it doesn’t require the next generation operating system and will run in the traditional Mac operating system.
The folks at Stata Corporation say they’re “unequivocally” continuing development and support for the Mac. They say they’ll continue to develop and provide support for every major computer platform.
“Stata has strong support for cross-platform use — datasets and programs are completely compatible across platforms,” the company said in an online message. “You can use Stata for Windows or Unix at work and Stata for Macintosh at home and seamlessly transfer data, graphics files, and analyses back and forth — without converting any files.”
(Thanks to MacCentral reader John Transue for the heads up on this item.)