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Google to Acquire Looker

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Re: Google to Acquire Looker

#131

Post by infinite8s »

buremba wrote: post #40

Hey all, as a potential competitor of Looker, I'm not sure how I should feel about this news. :) Here are some of the facts: 1. When Google acquired Alooma, they slowed down the development and dropped the support for other destinations such as Redshift and Hive. Even though Alooma is a data pipeline tool which makes it similar to Looker's case, the deal was $150M (compared to $2.6B) so I'm not sure the comparison ma…

I'll repeat a comment from a slightly related thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20053628

I've found something like a LookML syntax backed by SQLAlchemy Core has allowed me to implement something like Looker (but tied to my own visualization stack)

Re: Google to Acquire Looker

#132

Post by polskibus »

infinite8s wrote: post #131
buremba wrote: post #40

Hey all, as a potential competitor of Looker, I'm not sure how I should feel about this news. :) Here are some of the facts: 1. When Google acquired Alooma, they slowed down the development and dropped the support for other destinations such as Redshift and Hive. Even though Alooma is a data pipeline tool which makes it similar to Looker's case, the deal was $150M (compared to $2.6B) so I'm not sure the comparison ma…

I'll repeat a comment from a slightly related thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20053628 I've found something like a LookML syntax backed by SQLAlchemy Core has allowed me to implement something like Looker (but tied to my own visualization stack)

How does it work with parameterized filtering, time intelligence, etc ? Does the user have to modify the script or can they do it through point and click UI.

Re: Google to Acquire Looker

#133

Post by Achshar »

tomnipotent wrote: post #128
Achshar wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes we probably lie close to Superset and Mode than we do to Tableau but I believe the data transformations, access level (sharing) and deep integration put us apart from those. Tableau's quite bit more mature than we are but we already support self hosted service, OAuth based auth integration, sophisticated user access level based sharing for all resources (reports, connections, users, dashboards, visualizations, pr…

> data transformations, access level (sharing) and deep integration put us apart from those I couldn't find anything about these features on my first pass, though I do now see the "Cleanup" bit on the "Data Visualization" page. I would have really liked to see more about features/tools/strengths and less nebulous marketing promises.

That... would be the marketing team for you. We do spend quite a bit of our time adding stuff that I don't think I've seen anywhere else but is extremely useful for some of our biggest clients.

Re: Google to Acquire Looker

#134

Post by tomnipotent »

Achshar wrote: post #133
tomnipotent wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> data transformations, access level (sharing) and deep integration put us apart from those I couldn't find anything about these features on my first pass, though I do now see the "Cleanup" bit on the "Data Visualization" page. I would have really liked to see more about features/tools/strengths and less nebulous marketing promises.

That... would be the marketing team for you. We do spend quite a bit of our time adding stuff that I don't think I've seen anywhere else but is extremely useful for some of our biggest clients.

> I don't think I've seen anywhere else

Market that stuff! Blog posts, list of features, service comparison - anything. For example, I know that Tableau offers in-memory storage that can help improve performance by bring data in locally and not hitting the original source. Kato mentions something about "10x performance improvement", but there's zero explanation how this is accomplished.

Re: Google to Acquire Looker

#135

Post by polskibus »

buremba wrote: post #48
tmountain wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there an official project for your LookML alternative or is it part of a larger Github repo?

We actually developed this feature (we call it recipe) 2 weeks ago and we're working on the documentation at the moment. Since we focus on product data, the first recipe is written for Segment Warehouse. When users connect to their Segment warehouse, we automatically install this recipe, they can fork our Segment recipe to build their models on top of our base recipe. Thanks to DBT, we support some advanced features…

is the Rakam Recipe sth like an ETL template for a given data source type ?

Re: Google to Acquire Looker

#136

Post by infinite8s »

mountainofdeath wrote: post #30
chirau wrote: post #21

"Looker -- SQL for Dummies" Before you downvote me, these are not mine words but actually from a Looker engineer I asked to summarize the product. I don't know how accurate the quote is, but it stuck with me. Also, congrats to the team I guess. Is an acquisition an accomplishment or just a decision?

I can confirm that. I spent some time looking at it when the entire sales team at the SaaS startup I was at insisted on it. I'll admit, I have yet to see a BI tool that was this easy. I tried selling them first on a self-hosted instance of Apache Caravel, but it turns out ANY SQL is too much.

LookML is basically a DSL for business analytics rules (what does customer churn mean, how do we capture sales) compiled to SQL.

Re: Google to Acquire Looker

#137

Post by thenanyu »

tomnipotent wrote: post #114
Achshar wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The target market is anyone who has any kind of data. CSV, mysql, etc. Basically Tableau but much cheaper and customisable. We already have a few small business using Kato. They seem to enjoy that.

> Basically Tableau You mean Mode/Periscope/Superset/Metabase. I don't see anything that put's Kato near Tableau's offerings like Server, Prep etc.

what makes Mode/Periscope/Superset/Metabase the same category to you? Is it that they have SQL editing as a main entrypoint?

Re: Google to Acquire Looker

#138

Post by mirceal »

quirmian wrote: post #96
specialp wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes mostly related to advertising in some way which is their core business (besides 510). I think OP wasn't remarking about the financial success of the company as a part of Google, but the absorbing by Google of former SAAS companies and finally dropping their original paying customers. We are a Looker customer and are concerned. It seems Google is one of the only companies that can buy a SAAS enterprise product tha…

> Dropping their original paying customers When a Cloud company acquired a product/service for integration into their platform, I would hope that that includes transitioning to a Cloud friendly consumption based model. If that means including a free tier, or paying peanuts for low usage, that’s a good thing! Finally, Google’s (GCP’s really) enterprise SaaS (mostly) acquisitions that I can think of are - StackDriver,…

look at Nest and how hard people that invested in the ecosystem were hit.
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