Object-relational database management system.

Functionality	Background	Licence availability, restrictions & links to distributor
Oracle is the market leading database system and as such has a number of statistical functions built into its reporting and querying tools. However, for the vast majority of statistical analyses it would not be the tool of choice. If complex database functions are needed to support a statistical investigation, then the SAS suite (see above) has both a powerful database system and an advanced analytic toolkit.	Oracle as a company was founded in 1977. Its database system is the current market leader, though it is perceived more as an enterprise system offering companies a host of functionalities from web to process management and e-commerce, all built around a very powerful database management system.	IT Services has a site licence for Oracle database enterprise. Please contact the ITS Service Desk to discuss your requirements.

General Purpose Packages which have some Statistical Functionality

These packages are not basically designed for statistical analysis, but all have some statistical functionality and some, being mathematical tools, pretty much allow you to write any statistical analysis from scratch. But we would generally advise using packages that were designed primarily for statistical analysis since their functionality will generally have been tested and verified for statistical purposes. If you write your own calculations in a mathematical calculation tool, you risk miscoding the statistical technique and drawing poor or completely wrong inferences.

Please share your experiences and examples of how you have used this software by leaving a comment below, to help others choose the right software for their research requirements.