ReadWriteEnterprise

Revolution Analytics just released a new version of its suite of R-based statistical analysis tools Revolution R Enterprise 4.3. Significant new features include the ability to import data files from SPSS, a new predictive analytics algorithm for big data and an installer for Windows. Revolution R already supported importing from SAS files.

The new version is still free for academics, or for those participating in Kaggle data science competitions.

Paul Greenberg announced this week a fun new project called CRM Idol that will have 60 small CRM-related companies go up in front of a panel of judges and be reviewed.

The problem Greenberg outlines is one that we're familiar with here at ReadWriteWeb: bloggers, journalists, analysts, venture capitalists, etc. are inundated with pitches from small companies. Many of these companies could be great, but there are too many to sift through. This will help get some of these companies in front of a larger audience.

Ceylon is a new enterprise development language being developed by Red Hat employee Gavin King. The team plans to release a compiler later this year. King detailed the project at QCon Beijing 2011, and slides from his presentation were published earlier this month. When finished, it will run on the Java Virtual Machine and feature static typing, automatic memory management and other features missing from Java. According to King's presentation, the Ceylon team will strive to make the new language "easy to learn and understand."

It's currently in a very early stage. In a blog post, King writes, "All we have right now is a specification, an ANTLR grammar, and an incomplete type checker." Regarding whether it's a "Java killer," King wrote, "Ceylon isn't Java, it's a new language that's deeply influenced by Java, designed by people who are unapologetic fans of Java. Java's not dying anytime soon, so nothing's killing it."

Senators John Kerry, and John McCain introduced a bill to the Senate floor last week entitled "The Commercial Privacy Bill Of Rights" that would reform and codify how Internet user data could be used online.

On the surface, this seems like the type of altruistic bill that falls in to the no-brainer area of Congressional legislation. Privacy, protection, trust, accountability. All the good political buzzwords apply. Yet, it is not that simple. Data is the lifeblood of the Web and the use of consumer data and the bill would allow the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Commerce to have a significant hand in regulation of how data is collected and used by companies. Advertisers, innovators and consumer groups are concerned with the bill, not so much because of the wording of the legislation, but rather the amount of control it places in the hands of the FTC and whether or not that is necessary.

Oracle made the announcement today that OpenOffice will become a community project and no longer a commercial endeavor.

It's not a surprising move. But it does feel like a victory for the open source community and a sign that Oracle may be easing up a bit on its hard-line stance toward the open source community.

But it's not unfair to say that OpenOffice has seen better days. OpenOffice had its own glory when Sun Microsystems was an independent company with a belief in open source and a commitment to the project.

The first reviews are coming in for the long-awaited Blackberry PlayBook, RIM's new tablet. Now granted, the iPad is a tough act to follow (unless perhaps you're the iPad 2), and most of the recent tablet entries have failed to win over fans, critics, or customers. Based on some of the early reviews, the PlayBook faces a similar uphill battle.

Many of the reviews published over the last few days have focused on the same issues: solid hardware, but not enough apps. Of particular concern - or bafflement, even - is the fact that the PlayBook lacks some of the most basic apps, including email, contact, a calendar, a notepad, or even RIM's famously popular BlackBerry Messager system.

Today, the U.S. government agreed with Microsoft's accusation that Google had provided misleading information about whether or not its Google Apps for Government is certified under the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA).

According to Business Insider, a government agent agreed with Microsoft in front of the U.S. Senate, testifying that the product in question was currently going through the recertification process.

Socialtext announced today that it will release a virtual appliance that can be deployed as part of an on-premise or in the public cloud using VMware. The virtual appliance will provide all the features of the Socialtext software-as-a-service and its managed appliance.

There's mounting in interest in private, hybrid and "virtual private" clouds as companies look to take advantage of cloud elasticity without relinquishing too much control of mission critical systems. Socialtext cites Gartner researching finding that "76 percent of IT departments are planning to invest in private cloud strategies by 2012."

Today Jive Software announced its acquisition of Proximal Labs, a social network analytics company. Prior to the acquisition, Jive was a customer of Proximal Labs. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Proximal Labs co-founder and CEO David Gutelius is joining Jive as Chief Social Scientist.

Jive will use Proximal's machine learning technology, powered by Apache Hadoop, to help its users apply complex analytics to their enterprise social graphs. Example use cases include locating subject matter experts both inside and outside the firewall or surfacing relevant content within the network. The company is calling the platform "Jive What Matters."

IBM is announcing its biggest release for WebSphere in the past four years. It is also naming the application server one of its top technologies for its centennial celebration.

We're here at IBM Impact to live blog the news about the transformation in application server technology and how the company fits into a space with a variety of competitive challenges.