At our institute we have an educational network license of Stata/SE 8 with
*one* set of manuals. Budget contraints limits us to one set of manuals as an
additional one is priced at $375 (actually relatively cheap compared to their
weight...).
This results in people running up and down, back and forth across the
institute trying to find the manuals they currently need. Electronic
documentation would have saved me half a pair of shoes in the last two years,
I guess. And a lot of time.
In fact I prefer reading hard copies and the Stata manuls are great. But for
most network licenses online documentation would be more apt as academic labs
will rarely buy hard-copies for every license they purchase.
Daniel
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected]
> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
> Dupont, William
> Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2003 8:00 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: RE: st: PDF Stata 8 manuals
>
>
> I have no idea how much profit Stata makes from their
> manuals, but I would assume that Stata is primarily a
> statistical software company and only secondarily a
> publishing company. I believe that improving the quality and
> value of their software product is their most likely route to
> further prosperity. Stata is of limited value without the
> documentation and the manuals are of no value whatsoever
> without Stata. If improving the online documentation will
> decrease profits from paper manuals, then I for one, would
> recommend improving the online documentation and increasing
> the cost of Stata licenses to make up for the lost revenue
> from book sales.
>
> Bill Dupont
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