R: a “Rock Star” for Business Intelligence

TDWI (The Data Warehousing Institute) recently published a comprehensive article about R and increasing level of activity around it from commercial organizations, including Revolution Analytics. The article opens with:

In statistical circles, "R" is the name of an open source programming language for statistical analysis. These days, it might also be shorthand for "rock star."

Many of the companies cited in the article look to R to enhance business intelligence and data warehousing offerings. Jaspersoft, in conjunction with Revolution R, delivers "Mashboards" combining advanced analytics with traditional Business Intelligence displays). IBI (Information Builders, Inc.) has developed a "WebFOCUS-like front-end GUI" for R. And Netezza integrates R with their data warehousing appliance. Of course, big-name players like SAS, SPSS (IBM) and Oracle also tout integrations with R these days, but the article suggests this is more of a catch-up play to the new-wave companies that pioneered integrations with R. As Michael Corcoran from IBI says:

"The R technology is so well adopted, it’s almost a no-brainer for customers," said Corcoran, in a interview this Spring. "If you look at it, SAS now integrates with R … because they have to. … It’s not just universities anymore that are using [R]; it’s financial services, it’s retail."

Revolution Analytics’ own efforts to bring R to the commercial world are featured heavily in the article. As Jeff Erhardt (Revolution’s COO) says,

"With all of the growth in R, [companies are] starting to see their peers use R and … they’re also getting R creeping into their organizations by virtue of these recent grads who are using it," Erhardt continues. "Our pitch is to come in and say, ‘Hey, the world and business is going in this direction, whether you like it or not. We have a solid product built on this base-level of R, which is so well accepted, and over the next six months we’ll be exponentially expanding our capabilities."

Read the complete article at the link below for more information from Jeff about our product roadmap, including the forthcoming capabilities for large data analysis, web services integration and the thin-client GUI.

TDWI: Advanced Analytics on a Budget, R-Style