In 1996, when SPSS 6.1.3 was state of the art, I joined SPSS GmbH Software, the German subsidiary of SPSS Inc. I did not know anything about the company or the software these days, but my new boss, Dr. Karin C. was so nice to send me the printed manual some weeks before I started. I remember that the book ad a bad cigarette-smell … later I found out that the room where all the books and discs were stored was located next to the smokers room. 🙂
So when I started at March 1st 1996, my main task was doing tech support. We were a small support team of just 3 (Bernd S. and Andreas S.), and I had a hard start to get all the stuff right. The biggest challenge was about generating BS2000 license codes and helping customers with Unix installations. Or using the LTS – an internal database where everybody entered any communication with the customers (Yes – today they call it CRM … ). The first SPSS windows version was 6.1.3 and I felt pretty comfortable with using this. I was always a computer enthusiast and not a statistician, so most of the data management tasks were more or less easy for me.
More later…
Bernhard Witt