Tableau Blends Visualization and Collaboration in New Approach to Social BI

| Nov 9, 2007 | Data Management | Competitive Intelligence Report
| Analyst: James Kobielus

Current Perspective: Positive
Vendor Importance: High
Market Impact: High

Event Summary

On November 6th Tableau Software announced the general availability of Tableau Server, a new server-based solution for enterprise-wide sharing, discovery, publishing, and collaboration based on data visualizations that are kept continually refreshed with live data. Tableau also announced the general availability of Tableau Reader, which is a free browser-based application that allows anyone to view and interact with, but not modify, data visualizations created and published by users of Tableau Server and Tableau Desktop.

Analytical Summary

• Current Perspective: Positive on Tableau Software’s launch of a new server-side business intelligence (BI) visualization solution and a free-of-charge, browser-based visualization viewing tool, because with these releases, Tableau continues to distinguish itself as an innovator, blending visualization and social networking into a powerful new synthesis for social or collaborative BI.

• Vendor Importance: High to Tableau, because it needed to continue differentiating and evolving its offerings in the fiercely competitive visualization-focused segment of the BI/corporate management (CPM) market. With the launch of Tableau Server, it has established an attractive evolution path for users of its flagship desktop-based visualization tool. Organizations can deploy Tableau Server to cultivate online communities that foster a collective knowledge base of rich, interactive, user-defined analytics, managed through a shared repository of extensible visualization templates. Just as important, Tableau has released a free browser-based reader that will stimulate adoption of its social BI/visualization technology and help the vendor sell new licenses to both Tableau Server and Tableau Desktop.

• Market Impact: High on the BI market, because Tableau has rolled out an innovative new solution that represents an important industry milestone in the ongoing convergence of BI, enterprise collaboration, and social networking. Interactive visualization is a strategic technology for delivering and cultivating actionable intelligence in team-oriented business environments. Solution vendors should not dismiss visualization as mere “eye candy” in the BI/CPM wars. In fact, visualization is the core delivery mechanism for actionable analytics, a primary lens for bringing complex business metrics, trends, and opportunities into sharp focus. Rich visualization has become a key differentiator among vendor offerings in the BI, CPM, predictive analytics, complex event processing (CEP), and governance risk compliance (GRC) arenas.

Analytical Summary

• Business Objects, SAS, and other BI/CPM vendors should re-assess their respective visualization/dashboarding capabilities in light of Tableau’s release of its new server-based product and free browser-based reader and its recent enhancement to its flagship desktop tool. While many vendors have rich interactive visualization at a rough parity with Tableau, the state of the art continues to evolve rapidly, often driven by innovative pure-plays such as Tableau.

• BI/CPM vendors should follow Tableau’s lead by building Web 2.0-oriented social networking features into their solutions, thereby expanding users’ ability to share actionable, visually based intelligence amongst themselves, both within enterprises and across business-to-business value chains.

• Vendors of BI, CPM, text/data mining, predictive analytics, CEP/ESP, GRC, and other dashboard-focused applications should consider acquiring Tableau, Advizor, and other visualization pure-plays outright. Interactive visualization is a strategic technology for delivering and cultivating actionable intelligence in team-based environments.

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