PASW (formerly SPSS) is a computer program used for statistical analysis. Before 2009 it was called SPSS, but in 2009 it was re-branded as PASW (Predictive Analytics SoftWare). The company announced July 28, 2009 that it was being acquired by IBM for US$1.2 billion. SPSS (originally, Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) was released in its first version in 1968 after being developed by Norman H. Nie and C. Hadlai Hull. Norman Nie was then a political science postgraduate at Stanford University, and now Research Professor in the Department of Political Science at Stanford and Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Chicago. SPSS is among the most widely used programs for statistical analysis in social science. It is used by market researchers, health researchers, survey companies, government, education researchers, marketing organizations and others. The original SPSS manual (Nie, Bent & Hull, 1970) has been described as 'Sociology's most influential book'.In addition to statistical analysis, data management (case selection, file reshaping, creating derived data) and data documentation (a metadata dictionary is stored in the datafile) are features of the base software.