[R] use of R in big companies (references) & R-support esp in Germany

[Spencer Graves]

	  The best rebuttal I've heard recently to arguments like that is Linux 
(www.linux.org):  It's distributed under the same general public license 
(GNU) license as R.

	  A perspective that I don't recall having seen on this list is that 
the cost of producing and distributing software has become too cheap to 
meter, unless you want to charge for it.  Open source projects like 
Linux and R (and Mozilla, Subversion, and others) were much more 
difficult and less common before the Internet, just because the costs of 
coordinating development plus producing and distributing the product 
made such efforts much more difficult.  For a discussion of these 
phenomena by two Economics professors at UC-Berkeley, see Shapiro and 
Varian (1998) Information Rules (Harvard Business School Pr.).  A newer, 
similar title by these same authors is "The Economics of Information 
Technology";  I haven't read this newer book, but it looks like it could 
be relevant also.

	  I mention this, because I suspect some of the opposition to open 
source, "free" software is ideology:  Rabid capitalists refuse to 
believe that anything free can be any good.  (We could talk about air 
and water, but that might be a digression.)  Books like this backed by 
solid research might help counter such opposition.

	  Hope this helps.
	  Spencer Graves

Armin Roehrl wrote:
> Dear R users,
> 
>     sorry for this general email and I am sure it has been asked
> way too many times.
> 
> IT departements in big companies only want to support the big
> standards. Whatever big standards means apart from being expensive.
> 
> We are in the process of trying to get a risk management project
> for a big conservative company in Germany. As part of the project
> we would use R to run simulations, but the company is afraid of R.
> 
> 1) If anybody has any reference projects using R I can quote, please
> drop me an email. Best would be companies like Siemens, Allianz,
> Munich Re, Daimler Chrysler, Credit Suisse etc.
> 
> 2) Are there any software companies around with R know-how and are
> interested in paid R-projects? The bigger the company, the better
> as this client seems to be scared of software companies with less
> than 200 developers.
> 
> 
> Thanks,
>   -Armin
>