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Microsoft acquires Revolution Analytics
- baldfat 12y agoThis is a BIG step forward in further support of a language bashed on by certain people. I switched to R two years ago and it really has been a great fit for me and my work. Excited for Revolution Analytics and what positive things this could mean for R.
- elliott34 12y agoThis is crazy and awesome. Can't wait to see what happens.
- Splendor 12y agoWow! Congrats to the Revolution Analytics Team. I'm excited to see what they're able to accomplish with Microsoft's backing.
- baldeagle 12y agoWow, jaw droppingly unexpected news. I mean, I knew they had done a lot of work to make r on windows work as well and parallel as r on Linux, but wow. I wonder if Apple is liking at R studio? Also, congrats to the Revolution Analytics team!
- edraferi 12y agoYeah, very interested to see where this leaves R Studio. They don't seem like a direct competitor to Revolution Analytics. R Studio focuses on front end usability and ecosystem issues. Their R Studio IDE has great market share, and they seem to be making progress with Shiny. TIBCO is probably more concerned about this. Their TIBCO Enterprise Runtime for R (TERR) [1] competes directly against Revolution R Enterprise. The Microsoft acquisition positions Revolution Analytics in a much stronger position against TIBCO. Specifically, it will allow them to integrate with Microsoft's BI stack (Excel, PowerPivot, SharePoint) to compete against TIBCO SpotFire. [1] http://spotfire.tibco.com/discover-spotfire/what-does-spotfire-do/predictive-analytics/tibco-enterprise-runtime-for-r-terr http://spotfire.tibco.com/discover-spotfire/what-does-spotfi...
- blumkvist 12y agoThis will make a lot of companies uncomfortable. The undisputed leaders in analytics, SAS and IBM, most of all.
- Hansi 12y agoLast time we met with Revolution Analytics they did their demos on a MacBook Pro running MacOSX using RStudio.
- AtmaScout 12y agoCongrats! Can't wait to see what happens.
- mmcclellan 12y agoWeird, this almost feels like a Mandela effect for me.
- smeyer 12y agoI started googling around to find a definition for "Mandela effect" and came across some people with some rather odd views on quantum mechanics. That was bizarre.
- edraferi 12y agoVery interesting to see. Quite unexpected, but compelling when combined with Azure Machine Learning. I wonder if we'll see R support integrated with Office in the future. Native R integration with Access and Excel could be pretty cool.
- baldfat 12y agoFor people working in Microsoft Office only places that will be HUGE. (used M$ but got 3 down votes for using that acronym)
- baldfat 12y agoFor the down vote. Do you know how hard it was for me to get approval to use R by my company's M$ IT department? It took months to get official approval.
- spdustin 12y agoThe down votes are, if I had to guess, due to the use of M$ as a "clever" euphemism for Microsoft.
- nathansoz 12y agoThat's why I downvoted...
- baldfat 12y agoSorry that has been the acronym for Microsoft for a good 20 years, especially in Linux/Open Source circles. Sorry I was not trying be clever. I certainly never invented it's use. M$ = Microsoft isn't seen as the best. Here is conversation on Stack Overflow. http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6185/is-m-for-microsoft-allowed-considered-ok http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6185/is-m-for-micros... Guess the days of referring a negative point of view towards Microsoft or a Microsoft IT Department isn't accepted anymore by using communicating this by M$. I blame the stupid text message - script kiddie leet speech that came afterwards destroying this practice.
- barbudorojo 12y agoRecently in this post (*) I was talking about an idea, openlag, I was suggesting a similar model for microsoft and Revolutions Analytics, It seems I nail it. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/qilang/BPL-iRweRpk https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/qilang/BPL-iRweRpk Microsoft loves linux, What about a new name: OpenWinds?
- Hasu 12y agoInteresting, I've been thinking about something like "openlag" lately. It seems like an ideal compromise between the need to make money and the desire to open source everything. When I've been thinking about it, I was considering a much shorter period of time than three years, though, something more like 3-6 month periods, so your competitive edge comes from the newest features, and anything older is Open. I feel like it would work really well with a premium SaaS model- open source everything that's free to everyone, and have a reserved feature set that's only for paying customers. Paying customers get new features first, and eventually, everyone gets them. Of course, at some point, you might shoot yourself in the foot by making enough of the app free and open source that no one will want to pay for whatever you've been developing lately. You also, of course, have to always have compelling new stuff coming out to keep subscribers. I definitely don't think it's viable for every project, or even most projects, but "openlag" definitely seems like it has a place.
- kryptiskt 12y agoI know Ghostscript was released under that model, maybe it still is.
- publicfig 12y agoThis is very exciting and congratulations to the Revolution Analytics team! Even a few months or so ago, this would have been more worrisome news but I really (possibly just by a strong desire) do believe that Microsoft is moving in a much better direction in regards to both open source and in fully utilizing some of their more interesting R&D efforts (especially in development).
- q2 12y agoMay be better match for Redhat since both seems to be similar DNA. But new microsoft may be ok. Microsoft seems to be enhancing their products/services in enterprise while applying free/low-price on consumer side to compete with Apple/Google, balancing revenue and guidance to wallstreet. Search engine for Google is similar to Enterprise sales for Microsoft while both compete in consumer space. It may make MS competitive to companies in data processing space like SAS/IBM ...etc.
- hye 12y agoCannot wait for this to be paired with Azure Machine Learning. The results will be quite interesting, methinks.
- baldfat 12y agoIt already has happened. Microsoft Cloud Platform: https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-cl=84503534&v=z-lsheCYtug&x-yt-ts=1421914688#t=12 https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-cl=84503534&v=z-lsheCYtug... http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2014/11/r-on-azure-ml.html http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2014/11/r-on-azure-ml.ht...
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- euroclydon 12y agoGot me thinking about what is means for SAS, and found: R vs SAS, why is SAS preferred by private companies? http://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/33780/r-vs-sas-why-is-sas-preferred-by-private-companies http://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/33780/r-vs-sas-why-...
- vishalzone2002 12y agoI think this is a big threat to them. I find R more powerful than SAS. With Tibco and microsoft behind the language now, it is going to eat a lot of market.
- IndianAstronaut 12y agoCode that was written for SAS in the 80s still runs today.
- michaelhoffman 12y agoCode that was written for S in the 80s still runs on R today.
- RockyMcNuts 12y agoIf it has any loops, almost as slowly and uselessly as it did then :)
- jfolson 12y agoNot really. All packages are bytecode compiled, so unless you doing something stupid, for loops are much faster than they used to be in R.
- RockyMcNuts 12y agogood to know...was doing something in 2013 that couldn't be vectorized (lots of portfolio simulation calcs where each element in dataframe depended on previous elements, ie portfolio value + market return - spending based on moving average of portfolio value) and it was pretty horrible, trying to use Rcpp and whatnot to speed it up!
- poppow 12y agoExciting news. Wonder what Google will do? Contribute to Julia development ;-)
- sukilot 12y agoGoogle prefers users upload data to the cloud for Google's custom software to analyze
- IndianAstronaut 12y ago>Google's custom software to analyze So Google can analyse user's software too.
- taylorwc 12y agoTIL that MSFT used R to develop algorithms for xbox online matchmaking. Awesome!
- ripberge 12y agoI thought Microsoft was kind of dead too: http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html However, in the past six months they continue to become more surprising, interesting and relevant on many fronts every day. And the pace seems to be accelerating. I might dare say they're the most exciting "big" tech company in 2015...
- Chronic30 12y agoAs with most things Paul Graham says, he is usually wrong.
- vmarsy 12y ago"Thanks to OS X, Apple has come back from the dead in a way that is extremely rare in technology. [2] Their victory is so complete that I'm now surprised when I come across a computer running Windows. Nearly all the people we fund at Y Combinator use Apple laptops. It was the same in the audience at startup school. All the computer people use Macs or Linux now. Windows is for grandmas, like Macs used to be in the 90s. So not only does the desktop no longer matter, no one who cares about computers uses Microsoft's anyway." Maybe Microsoft is coming back from the dead the same way Apple did? Also April 2007, 2 months before the first iPhone was released, PG couldn't have predicted the impact of the iPhone in the mobile world. The only mention of it is : "of course Apple has Microsoft on the run in music too, with TV and phones on the way." But in the desktop world, Windows is still 90% of the operating system share[1] , (or at least 80% according to [2]) It's not surprising that every developer in the SV uses a MacBook: it's the best working tool for them. But if you look out in the rest of the world, people are not buying >$2000 laptops/desktops when they are perfectly fine with a Windows laptop to do their work&play. [1] http://www.netmarketshare.com/ http://www.netmarketshare.com/ [2] http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp
- AdeptusAquinas 12y agoWhen PG wrote that and I read it I was working in a Microsoft partner shop developing full-stack MS solutions for clients. In Wellington NZ at the time almost everyone of any significant size, from private to public sector, used MS exclusively (its a little different now, 'bout 50/50 with a lot of mixed solutions). I couldn't tell where he was coming from - the only rationalisation seemed that he was talking exclusively about the startup scene in silicon valley. Case in point, we would have been surprised if we came across anyone using a machine running OS X, unless it was a personal toy they brought into work.
- reiichiroh 12y agoAre the RA team ex-Microsoft?
- _delirium 12y agoI don't believe so, no. The initial team was comprised mostly of academics, since it was founded as a spinoff from academia. The current CEO & CTO are both ex-Accenture. The scientific team members have a variety of backgrounds, including academia and other statistics and data companies (ex-SPSS, Netezza, etc.).
- cweber 12y agoI double checked my calendar to make sure that today is not April 1st. Wow. I mean WOW. Congratulations! A bright movement for both companies.
- malchow 12y agoWhat is with the "joining" euphemism? ("Revolution Analytics is joining Microsoft," as the blog post puts it.) Is there some sort of growing unclean perception when a company is acquired? More often than not, these acquisitions are intelligently motivated and, aside from producing great economic outcomes for the company being bought, seem to me a real encomium to the founders.
- samolang 12y agoJoining seems to imply they'll be keeping the acquired company's employees.
- dragonwriter 12y agoIts not a "growing unclean perception". Euphemisms like X is joining Y, or X is joining the Y family, etc., have been common in corporate mergers and acquisitions for a long time. The audience for the euphemism is mostly customers and employees, the impression that is sought to be created is that existing customers interests will continue to be served -- but even better by the new, bigger, stronger team -- and that employees are becoming part of something that includes their existing firm (and that they aren't going to be sacrificed.) Of course, euphemisms alone can only do a limited amount to mitigate customer and employee concerns, but their cheap, and everyone has used pretty much the same ones for decades.
- smortaz 12y agodear HN - my team at microsoft did the Python Tools for Visual Studio project (http://pytools.codeplex.com http://pytools.codeplex.com). i would love to know if there is any interest in us providing an "R Tools for Visual Studio" product. think Project, Edit, intellisense, Debug, Deploy, linux debug, etc. support for R in VS. if we did this, it would be a fork of PTVS (and free + open source of course). thx!
- cl42 12y agoWhat about "R Tools for Excel"? I worked on "R4Calc" 6 years ago (https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/R_and_Calc https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/R_and_Calc) and this project received over 25K downloads before it became inactive. Having something as easy to use as Excel, with access to R's scripting language, would make my life immensely easier.
- blumkvist 12y agoRexcel? http://rcom.univie.ac.at/download.html http://rcom.univie.ac.at/download.html
- cl42 12y agoYes, but native support in Excel for R would be much more interesting to me and certainly the businesses we sell to.
- smortaz 12y agoyes - i'd love to see native Python & R support in excel as well. they are aware that better scripting support is needed - they just need to hear it from more ppl to make it a priority. i'll point them at this thread meanwhile.
- blumkvist 12y agoI read somewhere that VBA is replaced by javascript in office 2016, which comes out this summer.
- waterloong 12y agoMicrosoft definitely has the most vocal fanboys among all the tech companies. I cant see this being a good news from any non-Microsoft perspective.
- akashtndn 12y agoThis should be interesting.
- binoyxj 12y agoMicrosoft's new-found love for open-source products/ services and Github is disturbing. Looks like MSFT is about to acquire Github.