Message-ID: <498271C4.6060401@etr-usa.com>
Date: 2009-01-30T03:19:32Z
From: Warren Young
Subject: How do I get my IT department to "bless" R?
In-Reply-To: <4cca6b120901291429h637a2da6sc0fc93708e11861@mail.gmail.com>
Daniel Viar wrote:
> I'd like to get our company to feel
> comfortable with open source
Anyone still denying, here in 2009, that open source offers serious
business value is a dinosaur, doomed to extinction. Their cerebella
have calcified. The balance tipped a decade ago.
Just like the real dinosaurs, extinction will only be fast on a
geological time scale. Don't expect your job to evaporate next year
because they won't use open source. Just expect that over the coming
decades to be routinely outcompeted by the mammals.
Chances are, your company actually has embraced open source in some way.
One facile argument is to ask if they use Google. Yes? Google uses
Linux, MySQL, and yes, even R, so your company does too, if indirectly.
Likely, some bit of open source has crept into your actual operation
elsewhere besides your little R enclave.
> How does one get an all Microsoft
> shop on board with allowing users to user R?
Proceed the same way you already are.
It is as Gandhi said: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you,
then they fight you, then you win."
Every revolution in corporate IT happened this way, including
Microsoft's own rise to dominance. (Remember Big Blue?)