Google to Acquire Looker

Thats definitely the wrong read. This is a direct competitor to Microsoft's PowerBI. Google will need Looker to get large enterprise data management deals on Google Cloud.

Out of those I only have substantial experience working with Superset. We replaced Superset for one of our biggest client a few months ago. We built a ton of features in the process. My take was that they ended up meddling with the user's query which raised issues with SQL injection and performance. For example filters only going on the end of the query.

In Kato filters can be replaced anywhere. Plus we offer a ton of integration and data manipulation features. One of the biggest things that the client really liked over Superset is the ability to set up drilldowns where when you click on a bar chart on any graph you can see further details about that bar chart in a table, or any other graph. And this drilldown can go however many levels deep. We can link different reports from entirely different datasources with drilldown. I don't think that's available in any of those mentioned above and it completely changes the user experience.

Yes. To date, the Google Cloud sales pitch felt like, “Super smart Googlers all use super secret awesome sauce to do Google-scale things, you should automatically buy the pale imitations we externalized* and love it without any support because it’s all just such Googley goodness.”

For instance, this is the mantra about Borg, Omega, Kubernetes and GKE, or Blaze and Bazel, or etc.: well, we have an amazing thing, we copied a bit of it for you because you’re not us, but isn’t it great? Please send any feedback to our noreply@google.com autoresponder so we never have to leave the hive.

TBC, the world is better for the stuff Google externalized! CNCF wouldn’t be what it is otherwise. But the default attitude about it is the exact opposite of how enterprises get comfort in buying.

below my view on this acquisition. I think Google is making a good move to break into Enterprise market. After Thomas Kurian joined Google (He is from Oracle), he said that Google will become a leading vendor for Enterprise IT solution and serve the largest enterprise clients in the world. He aims to compete with IBM, SAP and Oracle (Microsoft is is not the best player in this field.) Case in point, Google announce Anthos this year, which aims specifically to serve large enterprise.

Looker is one of the best upcoming BI platforms in the market. I like Looker. I even took Looker Certificate exam 3 years ago because I think Looker consultant will be valuable in the future. I would’ve already joined Looker to get their shares if they have office in Vancouver. :slightly_smiling_face:

LookML is a killer feature that solves a critical pain point in Enterprise BI and set Looker apart from the competitors, like Tableau and Periscope. This feature is no value to small startups and small company, but great feature for mid-size company, and critical to Large enterprise BI. Looker has a great potential to become the next leading Large Enterprise BI that successes Oracle OBIEE, MS PowerBI and SAP Business Object.

I think if Google is to take Looker and make it the next Enterprise BI and use it to get in the door of large Enterprise Customers, They are making a right strategy move. Google will bring a superior BI solution to its top-tier enterprise customers than IBM, Oracle, SAP. It plays well with Google’s strength in data offering, and BI the easier segment for Google to break through comparing to ERP, CRM and other enterprise solution segments.

If Google just wants part of Looker and absorb into the Google Machine, they are paying too high a price tag for it. (I don’t think that’s what Google are doing). I don’t think Google is buying it to eliminate competitor either, Google doesn’t have any products that offer similar features or target same market as Looker

For small business you can also check our https://www.seektable.com (primarily for data crunching / reporting)