Revolution Analytics Is Driving the R Statistics Language Forward

by Sam Dean - May. 07, 2010Comments (0)

Revolution Computing, which has long championed the powerful open source statistics software framework dubbed "R" has relaunched with a new name and new leadership. The company is now called Revolution Analytics, and has delivered plans to drive commercial adoption of R for predictive analytics uses. The company is squarely focused on the trend toward organizations of all stripes crunching big data, and if you're at all familiar with R, you know that it may have a bright future as part of that trend.

We covered R in detail in this post. It includes all of the components that any professional statistician might need, and is well-known for generating beautifully detailed graphics. It is also a complete language, and has been backed by a foundation, "The R Foundation for Statistical Computing," for some time.

Revolution Analytics made two community-related announcements about R today:

* The company’s flagship offering, Revolution R Enterprise, is now being offered free-of-charge to academic users.

* There is a new beta launch of inside-R.org, a web site for the R community, where R users will be able to find and share resources, ideas and tips.

Inside-R.org looks like a real find for those interested in R. “Today, many R users are highly trained statisticians and data analysts who’ve been instrumental in helping evolve the program,” said Robert Gentleman, co-creator of R and board director of Revolution Analytics, in a statement. “I believe that by fostering a relationship with the open source and academic communities Revolution Analytics can help drive R’s acceptance in mainstream business.”

Also, in the company's announcement, Norman H. Nie, Ph.D., a predictive analytics pioneer and co-founder of SPSS, said:

“We’re seeing a perfect storm of forces and opportunities. Businesses are producing unprecedented amounts of data that, if mined fast enough, can arm managers to make smarter decisions and drive winning results. At the same time, students across all disciplines are leaving their universities with an increasing level of R statistical training. This growing army of analysts needs better technology that’s able to handle the explosion of ‘Big Data.’ Revolution Analytics is building upon open source R to deliver the next-generation predictive analytics platform, with advantages in speed, scalability, productivity, ease-of-use and price.”

If you're unfamiliar with it, definitely check out our original post on R, and take a look at Inside-R.org. For those working with big data sets, R can be a surprisingly strong, free tool to work with.