Revolution Analytics

Revolution Analytics, initially named REvolution Computing, was established in 2007 by Richard Schultz, Martin Schultz, Steve Weston, and Kirk Mettler. The firm was conceived to provide commercial software and support for the open-source statistical programming language R, adopting a business model reminiscent of Red Hat's approach to Linux. Martin Schultz, one of the founders, was also a professor of Computer Science at Yale University at the time, and the company's early work focused on enhancing R with parallel computing capabilities to improve processing speeds for clients like Pfizer.

In 2009, the company secured a significant $9 million venture capital investment from Intel and North Bridge Venture Partners. This event marked a turning point, leading to a rebranding as Revolution Analytics and the appointment of Norman H. Nie as the new CEO. Nie was a distinguished figure in the analytics field, having co-founded SPSS and served as its CEO for many years. Under Nie's leadership, the company's focus shifted towards big data analytics, high-performance computing, and multi-core functionality.

The company's core business centered on its Revolution R product line, which was offered in several editions. A key product was Revolution R Enterprise, designed to handle large datasets that exceeded main memory by using a proprietary high-performance disk-based data store. The business model involved selling subscriptions for its enterprise-grade software and providing expert advisory services, support, and training. This catered to a wide range of clients, including major banks, pharmaceutical companies, and technology firms, enabling them to build and deploy scalable R-based analytics solutions. The firm also offered a free version, Revolution R Open, to foster community growth and academic use.

A major milestone in the company's history occurred on January 23, 2015, when Microsoft announced its agreement to acquire Revolution Analytics for an undisclosed sum, with the deal closing on April 6, 2015. The acquisition was a strategic move by Microsoft to integrate R-based advanced analytics into its data platforms, including SQL Server, Microsoft Azure, and Azure Machine Learning. Following the acquisition, Revolution Analytics' products were rebranded, such as Microsoft R Server and Microsoft R Open. However, in subsequent years, Microsoft began retiring the R distribution and related services it had acquired.

Keywords: Revolution Analytics, REvolution Computing, R programming language, statistical software, big data analytics, Norman H. Nie, predictive analytics, enterprise software, data science, Microsoft acquisition, Revolution R, ScaleR, parallel computing, open source analytics, high-performance computing, Martin Schultz, Richard Schultz, Steve Weston, Kirk Mettler, SPSS, data visualization, statistical computing