Microsoft has reached an agreement to acquire Revolution Analytics, the leading commercial provider of software and services for R, the world’s most widely used programming language for statistical computing and predictive analytics.

R has been popularized by the growing data science community, for whom it has become the defacto standard. The deal is important not just for Microsoft but for the language itself, according to Dave Vellante, chief researcher at Wikibon.  R is copyrighted by The R Foundation for Statistical Computing, a non-profit organization based in Vienna, Austria. The copyright and the ownership of R is unaffected by the MS acquisition of Revolution.

According to Revolution Analytics Chief Community Officer David Smith, Microsoft used R to develop the match-making capabilities of the Xbox online gaming service. Microsoft data scientists apply machine learning to data from Bing, Azure, Office, and the sales, marketing and finance departments. Microsoft supports R extensively within the Azure ML framework, including the ability to experiment and operationalize workflows consisting of R scripts in MLStudio.”

Jeff Kelly at Wikibon weights in on the deal with his breaking analysis.

“With the proposed acquisition of Revolution Analytics, Wikibon believes Microsoft has an opportunity to take significant strides in courting Data Scientists and other enterprise Big Data practitioners. It must continue to invest resources in Revolution Analytics’ core products, tightly integrate R with Microsoft’s existing and future Big Data portfolio of products, and, importantly, increase its activity with the open source community to ensure R continues to develop as an open source project in and of itself.”

Here is a video of David Smith at last year #BigDataSV event.  This year #BigDataSV will be in force in San Jose during #hadoopworld.  Join us at #BigDataSV – registration here

If you’re interested in the business of big data, join SiliconANGLE and Wikibon teams with live @theCUBE broadcasts throughout the week of #Hadoopworld in San Jose. Sign up here.

Register for #BigDataSV – Special @theCUBE Presentation

The Big Data market is moving into an exciting new phase. The early Big Data meme was all about data storage and processing technologies such as Hadoop and NoSQL. With Big Data moving into the enterprise, attention is turning to how to make Big Data initiatives more real-time and accessible to the business users to drive tangible business value.

If there is any question about this changing focus, just follow the money trail. Venture capitalists in the valley are increasingly placing their bets on start-ups that focus on these areas, including those that innovate around data visualization, machine learning, predictive analytics and operational applications. Big Data practitioners, who leverage these new technologies to upend existing markets and invent new business models, are also on the receiving end of more and more venture funding.

Join theCUBE, SiliconANGLE and Wikibon at #BigDataSV 2015 for a night of lively discussion and analysis of this new and exciting phase of the Big Data market. While our New York City agenda focused on public capital markets, our Silicon Valley emphasis will be on startups, innovation and venture/private capital. The agenda for the evening is as follows:

5:00pm-5:30pm: Arrival and registration

5:30pm-6:00pm: Wikibon Chief Research Officer David Vellante and Principal Analyst Jeff Kelly will present their research findings regarding the next phase of Big Data innovation, including identifying the hot technologies and start-ups that are helping Big Data practitioners turn data into insights and actions.

6:00pm-7:00pm: SiliconANGLE Executive Editor John Furrier will host a panel discussion with influential venture capitalists who will share their view of the Big Data market and where they are placing their bets in this fast-moving market. Panelists include Accel Partners’ Ping Li, Ignition Partners’ Frank Artale and Vertex Ventures’ Jonathan Heiliger.

7:00pm-9:00pm: Relax and enjoy stimulating conversation with other attendees at theCUBE Party at #BigDataSV 2015. Drinks and light hors-d’oeuvres will be served.

If you’re interested in the Big Data market and the new digital economy, you can’t afford to miss #BigDataSV 2015: Following the Big Data Money Trail. We look forward to seeing you in San Jose!