A survey of information systems managers was used to predict the yearly salary of be$-$ ginning programmer$/$analysts in a metropolitan area. Managers specified their standard salary for a beginning programmer$/$analyst$,$ the number of employees in the firm$$s information processing staff, the firm$$s gross profit margin in cents per dollar of sales, and the firm$$s information process$-$ ing cost as a percentage of total administrative costs. The data are given below for the $68$ programmer positions as follows: programmer$/$analyst$,$ yearly salary, number of employees, profit margin, and information processing cost.