Ask HN: How to Determine the Software Package to Use for Data Analysis?

[enkirah]

Currently I am working on defining a data analysis package for a lab that will process gigs of data a week. I would like to have the best solution but so far my team, and I, can only make a decision based on personal preferences. Which, is no way to make a technical decision, so I ask you HN: 1) How would you pick what package to use? (Please justify your answer and include measurable variables.) 2) What package would you pick based on the information below?

Requirements: - Ability to Handle 10 Gigs in Tab Delimited Tables - Produce Plots - Produce Formatted Tables - Produce a Word Document Report with Plots and Tables

3) What are good places to look for bench marking information for VBA vs Matlab vs Python?

Any insight is greatly appreciated.