Microsoft R One Big Data Tool To Rule Them All?

Microsoft MSFT +3.77% wants a slice of the big data analytics pie. Truth be told, it has already baked and served itself up a portion by acquiring the R-language and data crunching specialist Revolution Analytics, a purchase it completed in spring of 2015.

In non-developer-speak then, R is a popular open-source statistical computing language well suited to the ‘new’ world of enterprise class big data analytics. For the record, we used to call this stuff ‘data mining’ back in the 1990s (some people still do), so don’t believe ALL the big data hype you read — regardless, times have changed and we’re better at it now.

In Microsoft’s own words, the pitch here is as follows, “Microsoft R Server is your flexible choice for analyzing data at scale, building intelligent apps and discovering valuable insights across your business.”
Four key elements of big data analytics

Named (most probably) after its founders Ross Ihaka and Robert Gentleman, R performs at its best when used for big data statistics, predictive modeling and machine learning. In terms of use, we must now appreciate that there is more than one type of analytics ‘thing’ or ‘function’ that we might want to do:

• Big data analytics can be data preparation — elements such as de-duplication and time stamping data to know when it was created.
• Big data analytics can be data exploration — finding out what the core characteristics of the data set are.
• Big data analytics can be data visualization — charts and graphs to make interpreting data trends easier.
• Big data analytics can be data modeling — building up the logic so we know how different parts of data relate to each other.

Enough big data foundations already, what Microsoft is doing here is making sure that R Server boasts really good multiplatform support and is essentially open from the core. Remember how Microsoft has (arguably impressively) flummoxed us all by getting the open source religion and preaching it from every minaret in town? This, in effect, is a play for one big data tool to rule them all if you will.

One tool to rule them all

In the words of Joseph Sirosh, corporate VP at Microsoft Data Group, “[Microsoft R Server enables] enterprise customers to standardize advanced analytics on one core tool, regardless of whether they are using Hadoop (Hortonworks, Cloudera and MapR), Linux (Red Hat RHT +0.00% and SUSE) or Teradata TDC +4.35%. [We are committed to] building R and Revolution’s technology into our broader database, big data and business intelligence offerings and to bring these benefits to customers and students – on-premises, in the Azure cloud and to new platforms.”

IDC analyst for business analytics and information management Dan Vesset is convinced that Microsoft is playing an ‘important role’ (his words) in bringing big data analytics modeling and productivity tools and deployment tools to a broader audience.

“Advanced and predictive analytics is about developing and testing new models. But it’s also about their incorporation by developers into production deployments of decision support and automation solutions that can benefit the whole organization,” said Vesset.
… and now, it’s over to Redmond for the news

The ‘news hook’ connected to this discussion hinges around the fact that Microsoft has made a new Microsoft R Server Developer Edition (with all the features of the commercial version) now available as a free download — and, the Microsoft Data Science Virtual Machine will include a pre-installed and pre-configured version of Microsoft R Server Developer Edition.

Also, Revolution R Open is now known as ‘Microsoft R Open’ — a product name almost worth getting T-shirts printed for, were it not grammatically incorrect.

According to the powers that be in Redmond, “Revolution R Open is now called Microsoft R Open and Microsoft continues its commitment of support for the open source R project, and to releasing regular updates to its enhanced, free distribution of R. Microsoft R Open makes it easier to build reliable applications with R on Windows, Mac and Linux by simplifying the management of R package versions. Microsoft R Open is 100% compatible with all R scripts and packages, and just like R is open source and free to download, use and share.”

Is Microsoft doing well in open source big data analytics? Would that there was a highly amusing sarcastic remark to make as an epitaph here… almost none of the trade press were scathing to any degree whatsoever and one even used ‘Hooray!’ in the headline. It’s all about market domination though isn’t it? Microsoft is no charity. That’s that about as caustic as we can get here.