The big vendors are among founding members As foreshadowed on Twitter yesterday, a new R Consortium of major vendors launched today aimed at “strengthen[ing] both the technical and user communities,” according to a Linux Foundation announcement. Founding members include Microsoft, Google, Hewlett-Packard and Oracle, along with well-known R players such as RStudio, Tibco Software and Mango Solutions (Revolution Analytics is a member under the Microsoft umbrella). Alteryx and Ketchum Trading are also founding members. The consortium’s home at the Linux Foundation may ease some R users’ worries that major vendors could disrupt the open and collaborative spirit that now exists throughout much of the R community. “The R Consortium will complement the work of the R Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Austria that maintains the language,” according to this morning’s announcement. “The R Consortium will focus on user outreach and other projects designed to assist the R user and developer communities.” “We’ve got over a thousand Googlers using R, and it is critical to many projects,” Tim Hesterberg, senior quantitative analyst at Google, was quoted as saying in the announcement. “We love that it is open source, so we can connect to our internal data processing tools. We’re happy to support the R infrastructure as part of the R Consortium.” See more Computerworld R coverage Related content news analysis Apple earnings: About that iPhone 'slump' in China Based on information from Thursday's earnings report, it seems that data pointing to an iPhone slump in China were over-baked. By Jonny Evans May 03, 2024 9 mins iMac iPhone Apple news Microsoft begins to phase out ‘classic’ Teams Microsoft is encouraging Teams customers to move to the new, faster version of the collaboration app; the older version will be switched off next year. By Matthew Finnegan May 03, 2024 3 mins Microsoft Teams Collaboration Software Productivity Software news analysis Apple confirms it will open up the iPad in Europe this fall The latest efforts to comply with Europe’s Digital Markets Act mean developers can offer to side load apps to both iPhones and iPads in the EU. Apple has also taken steps to improve what it offers to smaller and non-commercial developers in the By Jonny Evans May 02, 2024 6 mins iPad Apple Mobile Apps news Udacity offers laid-off US workers free access to its courses for 30 days Sign-ups will be available over the next 30 days By Lucas Mearian May 02, 2024 4 mins Technology Industry IT Jobs IT Skills Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe