IBM Invests in R Programming Language for Data Science; Joins R Consortium

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R_Consortium_logoThe R Consortium, an open source foundation to support the R user community and a Linux Foundation project, today is announcing IBM is becoming a Platinum member of the project, which demonstrates a significant investment in the open source R programming language to simplify data analysis and statistical computing.

By 2020, an estimated 1.7 megabytes of new information will be created every second for every human being on the planet (see: IDC study, Worldwide Big Data Technology and Services Forecast, 2015-2019). However, less than one percent of this data is ever analyzed for meaningful applications. Data scientists, for example, spend up to 70 percent of their time integrating and organizing data before analyzing and applying it toward critical applications like weather modeling or cancer research.

The R language is a free and open source programming language used by statisticians, analysts and scientists to unlock the value from data. It provides an interactive environment for data analysis, modeling and visualization. The R Consortium aims to support the growing R user community and help ensure that the language evolves to meet new data challenges as they arise.

As a global leader in data analytics and management, IBM has invested in software and technology solutions designed to help enterprises gain powerful insights from data. The company has relied on R, among other data languages, to help create innovative solutions like IBM Watson, an open, cognitive computing technology platform that represents a new era in computing where systems understand the world like humans do: through senses, learning, and experience. As a member of the R Consortium, IBM will collaborate with the R user community and support the project’s mission to identify, develop and implement infrastructure projects that drive standards and best practices for R code.

We’re pleased to welcome IBM to the R Consortium,” said Hadley Wickham, Infrastructure Steering Committee Chair, R Consortium. “IBM is a longstanding contributor to open source software and has immense expertise in data analytics and computing. I very much look forward to their collaboration with the R community.”

As a Platinum member of R Consortium, IBM will gain a seat on both the Board of Directors and Infrastructure Steering Committee (ISC), helping to provide support and technical guidance to the R community. Dinesh Nirmal, vice president of development for next generation analytics platform and big data solutions, will join the R Consortium Board of Directors.

IBM is deeply invested in open source software for computing applications like data science. And as a long time member of The Linux Foundation, it’s a natural fit for us to extend our commitment to collaborative development by joining the R Consortium,” said Dinesh Nirmal, IBM. “The R Consortium is the leading open source community to advance the R language for data analysis and modeling, and we are very eager to collaborate with the R user community.”

IBM joins Platinum members Microsoft and RStudio and is also a Platinum member of The Linux Foundation.

Today’s news furthers IBM’s commitment to advance Spark as the analytics operating system for accelerating innovation and driving analytics across every business. IBM continues to partner with leading data science organizations including Galvanize, H2O, LightBend and RStudio to promote an integrated and unified data science ecosystem. Additionally, IBM is joining the R Consortium to help accelerate data science’s readiness for the enterprise.

 

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