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Salesforce is buying Tableau for $15.7B

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Re: Salesforce is buying Tableau for $15.7B

#371
post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the problem, business systems are not complex, they are incredibly simple, they are made complex by the way we think about and structure our models and then interact with them. We have the wrong boundaries, and the wrong languages

Would you be able to point me towards modelling approaches/boundaries/languages that would be more appropriate? I'd be interested to learn about better alternatives, as I don't yet see the big flaws in relational models

Unfortunately there is no real alternatives, its like operating systems, one or two system have so much momentum that using anything else becomes extremely difficult even when they are inferior in certain domains. see http://www.fixup.fi/misc/usenix-login-2015/login_oct15_02_ka...

Re: Salesforce is buying Tableau for $15.7B

#372
post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the problem, business systems are not complex, they are incredibly simple, they are made complex by the way we think about and structure our models and then interact with them. We have the wrong boundaries, and the wrong languages

Would you be able to point me towards modelling approaches/boundaries/languages that would be more appropriate? I'd be interested to learn about better alternatives, as I don't yet see the big flaws in relational models

A better alternative is having the data, data model and business logic tightly bound in one place. Not separated in multiple "tiers"

When one of these things change it changes the rest.

Re: Salesforce is buying Tableau for $15.7B

#373
post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expensive data engineer here, I see nothing wrong with this >:)

I am hiring one in Krakow! Seriously though, in a team of 10 business analysts I can barely afford 1 data engineer. Business analysts tend to cost less and also be more "business focuses", so they are an easier sell to management.

You seem to have an engineering problem, so hire engineers and perhaps fire some of those analysts. Don't make your business depend on someone else's tailored IT products, they will reap the profits you could be making.

Re: Salesforce is buying Tableau for $15.7B

#374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey! Glad you enjoyed what the IOT team was doing! I didn't think many people knew about us! I was actually a part of that team and left Salesforce pretty recently. I think i can safely state that everyone involved in building the tech for that IOT product was pretty proud of what we built. That being said, the team that built it 2-3 years back and the current team are fundamentally different. The department was thor…

Wow we probably crossed paths. At the time, a CTA buddy of mine was starting the North America IOT Cloud practice at Accenture and was bringing me along for the ride. He had a baby and eventually left to run a program at a client (9 to 5 no travel). Without him, I bailed soon after for a higher up role at a startup. I would still love to get back in that scene though, this acquisition makes it that much more interest…

Ha! We most likely did in some fashion. It sure is a small world out there. All the best!

Re: Salesforce is buying Tableau for $15.7B

#375
post #183
post #65

Salesforce currently has a P/E ratio of 104. The headline might as well read "Salesforce is buying Tableau for $15.7B in Monopoly money." This deal makes a lot of sense for Salesforce. They should be (and are) on an acquisition spree. But if I had stock options (or any kind of locked-up equity) in Salesforce, I'd be worried right now. Someone is going to be left holding the bag.

Few if any institutional investors are looking at CRM on a P/E basis. They're valuing the company usually on EV/Sales and EV/FCF.

That's a strange claim.

First, how do you know what all institutional investors are thinking?

Second, Sales and FCF straddle Earnings on the income statement. A focus on EV/Sales suggests that investors are optimistic about growth and ignoring the spending required to get there. A focus on EV/FCF suggests that investors are optimistic about increased efficiency and cutting costs.

Re: Salesforce is buying Tableau for $15.7B

#376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tableau has a data etl tool called “Prep” that helps with this problem. But it only goes so far. But I think that’s where the problem truly requires a data engineer.

Exactly. Instead of ETL, start writing your own Perl and various logical, reusable components. Roll your own ETL, however you want it, in a terminal. So what, you have to learn vim, big deal! Mouse driven interfaces are a huge part of the dysfunction.

And after a few years you leave your job, a new person comes in and gets stuck with your script soup and lack of documentation.

Companies prefer well known products like Alteryx or Tableau because, despite the cost, it makes people easier to replace.

But i cant blame you for writing your own things. Im currently replacing a large SSIS-based etl proces with Python, because i'm sick of SSIS randomly breaking.

Re: Salesforce is buying Tableau for $15.7B

#377
post #30

Wow, Looker last week and now Tableau. I’m only 90 days in to running the open source equivalent inside GitLab, and these big revenue multiples are telling a fascinating story. I would’ve loved to be a fly on the wall for this negotiation, what a great outcome for Tableau shareholders! With all that’s happening we’re definitely looking to pick up the pace, and would love to work with more contributors on the free ope…

The work you are doing at Meltano is simply brilliant. It needs to be done and if done well I have no doubt you will be very successful. I plan to use it.

Re: Salesforce is buying Tableau for $15.7B

#378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you call Mulesoft?

The #6 tool behind Informatica, Dell Boomi, Jitterbit, Workato and SnapLogic according to Gartner.

Yet it's still an ETL tool.

On a sidenote, at what point do we stop taking Gartner seriously? Recent report had MicroStrategy (complete dinosaur of an application) ranked top on almost every category. It's so blatant.

https://www.gartner.com/doc/reprints?id=1-6P7GS86&ct=190517&...

Re: Salesforce is buying Tableau for $15.7B

#379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This basically reads like, "You need to have a data engineer." Or half an engineer and half an analyst.

Let’s say you have 20000 tables in total for a company. They are in 10 different databases. You have no overview over the data and no comments. You don’t have a starting point for where information x are. Welcome to my reality. Would I love a data architect and a domain expert in my team? Yeah. Will I run around booking meetings with everyone that even hints at working with data like a headless hen? Yeah. Is this the…

Everything you mention is true and is compounded if the data healthcare related. Privacy concerns, data from different systems that claim to be the same. Preventing reidentification.

Re: Salesforce is buying Tableau for $15.7B

#380
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the entire back end stack is still pretty much the same as 20-30 years ago (big expensive Oracle-ish databases). Other than the expensive part, is it really such a bad thing? I feel like relational databases are a pretty good fit for a wide set of use cases and have a huge amount of tooling.

RDBMS = data silo

I don't understand why this gets downvoted. While it may lack context (with the aim of being controversial), it sparked a healthy amount discussion here!
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