The open source R programming language has the capability to affect big advances in analytics and business intelligence and the enterprise software industry has taken notice. Capable of analyzing “Big Data” — those exploding data sets that have traditionally defied analysis — and producing publication-quality plots with mathematical symbols and formulae, the formerly academic language is making inroads in the business world. Vendors such as SAS, Netezza, Revolution Analytics and IBM are bringing R into the commercial realm.
Earlier this month, Revolution Analytics — the leading commercial sponsor of R — introduced Big Data analysis to its Revolution R Enterprise software, taking R to what it claims are unprecedented levels of capacity and performance for analyzing very large data sets. To prove that claim, Revolution Analytics has published performance and scalability benchmarks for Revolution R Enterprise.