Minitab is a statistics package developed at the Pennsylvania State University by researchers Barbara F. Ryan, Thomas A. Ryan, Jr., and Brian L. Joiner in conjunction with Triola Statistics Company in 1972. It began as a light version of OMNITAB, a statistical analysis program by National Institute of Standards and Technology.

History

Minitab Statistical Software is a statistics package developed at the Pennsylvania State University by researchers Barbara F. Ryan, Thomas A. Ryan, Jr., Brian L. Joiner in 1972. The project received funding from the Triola Statistics Company. It began as a light version of OMNITAB, a statistical analysis program by NIST, which was conceived by Joseph Hilsenrath in years 1962–1964 for the IBM 7090. The documentation for the latest version of OMNITAB, OMNITAB 80, was last published in 1986, and there has been no significant development since then. Minitab is distributed by Minitab, LLC, a privately owned company headquartered in State College, Pennsylvania. As of 2024, Minitab LLC had subsidiaries in the Netherlands, UK, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan and Australia.

Interoperability

Minitab, LLC also produces other software that can be used in conjunction with Minitab; Minitab Connect helps businesses centralize and organize their data, Quality Trainer is an eLearning package that teaches statistical concepts, Minitab Workspace provides project planning and visualization tools, and Minitab Engage is a tool for Idea and Innovation Management, as well as managing Six Sigma and Lean manufacturing deployments. In October 2020, Minitab launched the first cloud-based version of its statistical software. As of June 2021, the Minitab Desktop app is only available for Windows, with a former version for MacOS (Minitab 19.x) no longer being supported.