Revolution Analytics
Encyclopedia
Revolution Analytics is a statistical software company focused on developing "open-core" versions of the free and open source software
R
for enterprise, academic and analytics customers. Revolution Analytics was founded in 2007 as REvolution Computing providing support and services for R in a model similar to Red Hat
's approach with Linux in the 1990s as well as bolt-on additions for parallel processing. In 2009 the company received nine million in venture capital
from Intel along with a private equity firm and named Norman H. Nie
as their new CEO. In 2010 the company announced the name change as well as a change in focus. Their core product, Revolution R, would be offered free to academic users and their commercial software would focus on big data
, large scale multiprocessor (or "high performance
") computing, and multi-core functionality.
in 2007, spun off from Yale University
's computer science department. Adding parallel computing to R allowed the company to net large gains in speed for many common analytics operations and early clients like Pfizer
took advantage of REvolution R to see large performance gains using R on computing clusters. While the improvements to core R were released under the GNU Public License (GPL), REvolution provides support and services to customers of their commercial product and had considerable early success with life sciences and pharmaceutical companies. A year later the company opened an additional office in Seattle.
In 2009 REvolution Computing accepted nine million dollars in venture capital from Intel and North Bridge Venture Partners, a private equity firm. Intel had previously supported REvolution Computing with venture capital in 2008. A number of Intel employees also joined Revolution Analytics as employees or as advisors. Concurrently, the company changed their name to Revolution Analytics and invited Norman Nie, founder of SPSS
, to serve as CEO. This change in management corresponded with a movement toward building a more complete set of software for commercial users; prior to 2009 Revolution had been focused on building parallel processing functionality into the then mostly single threaded R.
, R does not natively handle datasets larger than main memory. In 2010 Revolution Analytics introduced RevoScaleR, a package for Revolution R Enterprise designed to handle big data through a high-performance disk-based data store called XDF (not related to IBM's Extensible Data Format
) and high performance computing across large clusters. The release of RevoScaleR marked a push away from consulting and services alone to custom code and a la carte
package pricing. RevoScaleR also works with Apache Hadoop and other distributed file systems and Revolution Analytics has partnered with IBM to further integrate Hadoop into Revolution R. Packages to integrate Hadoop and MapReduce into open source R can also be found on the community package repository, CRAN.
or SPSS, R is a full featured programming language. Revolution Analytics also hopes to compete on price as well as speed with SAS and other proprietary analytics tools. Community vice president David Smith suggested that movement away from "black box
" analytics toward open source tools in general supported vendors like Revolution over solely proprietary tools.
competitions are free.
Free and open source software
Free and open-source software or free/libre/open-source software is software that is liberally licensed to grant users the right to use, study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code...
R
R (programming language)
R is a programming language and software environment for statistical computing and graphics. The R language is widely used among statisticians for developing statistical software, and R is widely used for statistical software development and data analysis....
for enterprise, academic and analytics customers. Revolution Analytics was founded in 2007 as REvolution Computing providing support and services for R in a model similar to Red Hat
Red Hat
Red Hat, Inc. is an S&P 500 company in the free and open source software sector, and a major Linux distribution vendor. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite offices worldwide....
's approach with Linux in the 1990s as well as bolt-on additions for parallel processing. In 2009 the company received nine million in venture capital
Venture capital
Venture capital is financial capital provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, growth startup companies. The venture capital fund makes money by owning equity in the companies it invests in, which usually have a novel technology or business model in high technology industries, such as...
from Intel along with a private equity firm and named Norman H. Nie
Norman H. Nie
Norman H. Nie is an American social scientist, university professor, inventor, and pioneering technology entrepreneur. Born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1943, Dr. Nie was educated at the University of the Americas in Mexico City, Washington University in St. Louis and Stanford University, where he...
as their new CEO. In 2010 the company announced the name change as well as a change in focus. Their core product, Revolution R, would be offered free to academic users and their commercial software would focus on big data
Big data
Big data are datasets that grow so large that they become awkward to work with using on-hand database management tools. Difficulties include capture, storage, search, sharing, analytics, and visualizing...
, large scale multiprocessor (or "high performance
High-performance computing
High-performance computing uses supercomputers and computer clusters to solve advanced computation problems. Today, computer systems approaching the teraflops-region are counted as HPC-computers.-Overview:...
") computing, and multi-core functionality.
Founding and venture capital
REvolution Computing was founded in New Haven, ConnecticutNew Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut and the sixth-largest in New England. According to the 2010 Census, New Haven's population increased by 5.0% between 2000 and 2010, a rate higher than that of the State of Connecticut, and higher than that of the state's five largest cities, and...
in 2007, spun off from Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
's computer science department. Adding parallel computing to R allowed the company to net large gains in speed for many common analytics operations and early clients like Pfizer
Pfizer
Pfizer, Inc. is an American multinational pharmaceutical corporation. The company is based in New York City, New York with its research headquarters in Groton, Connecticut, United States...
took advantage of REvolution R to see large performance gains using R on computing clusters. While the improvements to core R were released under the GNU Public License (GPL), REvolution provides support and services to customers of their commercial product and had considerable early success with life sciences and pharmaceutical companies. A year later the company opened an additional office in Seattle.
In 2009 REvolution Computing accepted nine million dollars in venture capital from Intel and North Bridge Venture Partners, a private equity firm. Intel had previously supported REvolution Computing with venture capital in 2008. A number of Intel employees also joined Revolution Analytics as employees or as advisors. Concurrently, the company changed their name to Revolution Analytics and invited Norman Nie, founder of SPSS
SPSS
SPSS is a computer program used for survey authoring and deployment , data mining , text analytics, statistical analysis, and collaboration and deployment ....
, to serve as CEO. This change in management corresponded with a movement toward building a more complete set of software for commercial users; prior to 2009 Revolution had been focused on building parallel processing functionality into the then mostly single threaded R.
High performance computing, big data and the shift to analytics
Unlike analytics products offered by SAS InstituteSAS Institute
SAS Institute Inc. , headquartered in Cary, North Carolina, USA, has been a major producer of software since it was founded in 1976 by Anthony Barr, James Goodnight, John Sall and Jane Helwig...
, R does not natively handle datasets larger than main memory. In 2010 Revolution Analytics introduced RevoScaleR, a package for Revolution R Enterprise designed to handle big data through a high-performance disk-based data store called XDF (not related to IBM's Extensible Data Format
Extensible Data Format
The Extensible Data Format is an XML standard developed by NASA, meant to be used throughout scientific disciplines. In many ways it is akin to XSIL, Extensible Scientific Interchange Language. NASA provides two XDF APIs, in Perl and in Java.XDF is used to store high dimensional data and...
) and high performance computing across large clusters. The release of RevoScaleR marked a push away from consulting and services alone to custom code and a la carte
À la carte
À la carte is a French language loan phrase meaning "according to the menu", and used in* A reference to a menu of items priced and ordered separately, i.e. the usual operation of restaurants * To order an item from the menu on its own, e.g...
package pricing. RevoScaleR also works with Apache Hadoop and other distributed file systems and Revolution Analytics has partnered with IBM to further integrate Hadoop into Revolution R. Packages to integrate Hadoop and MapReduce into open source R can also be found on the community package repository, CRAN.
Market position
In comparison to IBM (owners of SPSS, the analytics tool developed by Norman Nie and others) and SAS, Revolution Analytics is a small company. In 2009 SAS reported 2.3 billion dollars in revenue while Revolution Analytics estimated sales of 8 to 11 million. According to Nie, this disparity is rapidly shifting as researchers and academics focus more on R and less on SAS or SPSS. Advantages of R over SAS (for both the free and commercial versions of R) include flexibility and extensibility. In contrast to SAS, STATAStata
Stata is a general-purpose statistical software package created in 1985 by StataCorp. It is used by many businesses and academic institutions around the world...
or SPSS, R is a full featured programming language. Revolution Analytics also hopes to compete on price as well as speed with SAS and other proprietary analytics tools. Community vice president David Smith suggested that movement away from "black box
Black box
A black box is a device, object, or system whose inner workings are unknown; only the input, transfer, and output are known characteristics.The term black box can also refer to:-In science and technology:*Black box theory, a philosophical theory...
" analytics toward open source tools in general supported vendors like Revolution over solely proprietary tools.
Products
Revolution Analytics offers licenses for single user and server versions of Revolution R Enterprise. Single user licenses for academic users as well as users competing in Kaggle data miningData mining
Data mining , a relatively young and interdisciplinary field of computer science is the process of discovering new patterns from large data sets involving methods at the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics and database systems...
competitions are free.
External links
- Revolutions, the Revolution Analytics blog
- About page for Revolution Analytics
- Interview with Revolution Analytics COO Jeff Erhardt about R, Hadoop and business analytics