In a move aimed at strengthening its portfolio of advanced analytics tools, Microsoft has bought over Revolution Analytics, a software vendor whose products are based on the open source R language and statistical analysis environment
The software giant will work with Revolution Analytics to evolve the R platform and continue to support both open source and commercial distributions of Revolution R across operating systems.
Joseph Sirosh, corporate vice-president of machine learning at Microsoft, said that the move would help the company take advantage of the growing need among businesses for simplified yet powerful data science capabilities.
Revolution Analytics provides an enterprise-class platform for the development and deployment of R-based analytic solutions that can scale across large data warehouses and Hadoop systems, and can integrate with enterprise systems. Its Revolution R product line, combined with its expert advisory services and training, help people and companies realise the potential of big data using sound statistical, scientific methodologies.
“We are making this acquisition to help more companies use the power of R and data science to unlock big data insights with advanced analytics. By leveraging Revolution Analytics technology and services, we will empower enterprises, R developers and data scientists to more easily and cost effectively build applications and analytics solutions at scale,” Sirosh added.
The R programming language, which Revolution Analytics’ software is based on, is extremely popular among data scientists. In recent years, Microsoft has been losing ground among this group, even as many businesses have looked to increase the role that data science plays in their decision-making processes.
According to Revolution Analytics, one of the reasons it made the decision to integrate with Microsoft was because the computer manufacturer has demonstrated its dedication to open source environments in recent years.
The news came after Microsoft had announced its integration with Python, an alternative programming platform with data science and visualisation software features.
Sirosh noted, “I firmly believe that we are at the threshold of a revolution in information technology driven by the use of statistics and scientific analyses on big data.”
To register for Big Data Analytics for Oil & Gas, please visit: http://www.oilandgasbigdata.com/register
