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Tableau Software Threatened? Rival Growing at 70% Just Raised $103M

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Re: Tableau Software Threatened? Rival Growing at 70% Just Raised $103M

#41

Post by go_prodev »

feydaykyn wrote: post #23
tensor wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're going through the process of getting a BI solution. There are many players and Tableau doesn't fair well against them. I can see them holding on to existing customers because switching is hard, but they absolutely have a lot of competition for new sales.

Would you share the ones you found worthwhile? Our business wants PowerBI, but the sys admin side sounds like a pain : it seems we need: 1) a consultant to setup the visualisations 2) either a vm running windows server or create a db on azure to update manually because powerbi doesn't allow aws databases 3) the api automation capabilities are unclear says the expert (eg: create a new dashboard for a new customer ? Up…

I'm currently helping a large company with their transition from Tableau/SAP/Excel to Power BI.

The adoption has been extremely painless and business users are very comfortable creating reports and discovering new ways to represent their data.

In response to your points above... 1) A consultant is not required to set up visualisations. With minimal training (a few hours) most users understand the fundamentals and are ready to go.

2) We use AWS Redshift. You have the option to import data into Power BI or do a direct query from the cloud platform to Redshift with odbc.

3) what are you trying to do with the API? To automate reports you normally set up a gateway connection to your data source and schedule the refresh in powerbi cloud. No API required normally.

It also can use office 365 or Azure AD for single sign on, making sys admin activities a breeze.

Send me a message if you want to discuss anything specific and I'd be happy to help you out.

Re: Tableau Software Threatened? Rival Growing at 70% Just Raised $103M

#42

Post by rchaud »

madamelic wrote: post #20

Forbes seems to be 95% ads now. Not just the content. I went on the page and a huge 3/4 page banner scrolled my view, then another popped into the side, then Forbes had a pop over asking for my email. Yikes!

Places like Forbes, Inc and Huffpost appear to exist solely for content writers to use their logo on their portfolio websites under the heading "Published In: ".

Re: Tableau Software Threatened? Rival Growing at 70% Just Raised $103M

#44

Post by bsg75 »

zhobbs wrote: post #17
ineedasername wrote: post #2

Not really a threat. this article is mostly about Looker, which is a very different product with a significantly higher entry level price tag. Tableau on the other hand is part of the curriculum in many information science programs in colleges, and is significantly embedded in the enterprise sector. it will take significant stagnation on Tableua's part or a black swan type of event to dislodge them any time soon.

"it will take significant stagnation on Tableua's part" As a former customer of Tableau, it feels like this has already happened right? I worked at a company where many teams used it, and there were zero defenders of Tableua when it came time to decide whether to renew...it's a mess, especially on Mac.

Is there an alternative on Mac?

Any tool that has a purely web based design UI is not limited to an OS, so the alternatives would have to supply a native Mac design tool as Tableau does.

Re: Tableau Software Threatened? Rival Growing at 70% Just Raised $103M

#45

Post by cosmie »

feydaykyn wrote: post #23
tensor wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're going through the process of getting a BI solution. There are many players and Tableau doesn't fair well against them. I can see them holding on to existing customers because switching is hard, but they absolutely have a lot of competition for new sales.

Would you share the ones you found worthwhile? Our business wants PowerBI, but the sys admin side sounds like a pain : it seems we need: 1) a consultant to setup the visualisations 2) either a vm running windows server or create a db on azure to update manually because powerbi doesn't allow aws databases 3) the api automation capabilities are unclear says the expert (eg: create a new dashboard for a new customer ? Up…

> 2) either a vm running windows server or create a db on azure to update manually because powerbi doesn't allow aws databases

I believe this is a misunderstanding. You can totally connect to AWS databases with PowerBI, assuming your AWS database is routable. You can't set up the connection through the web interface, but you can use PowerBI Desktop to set up virtually any database that has an ODBC driver as a source[1]. And once you publish it to the Azure-hosted PowerBI instance, it'll use that connection string to connect directly to the data source and automatically update/refresh like any other data source.

As for a VM running Windows Server - that's the option if your AWS database isn't routable by the Azure-hosted PowerBI service. You install a gateway for PowerBI to hop through, and configure all of the data sources within that gateway. That way your internal AWS databases are not publicly routable, and you can lock down and centralize the connection between PowerBI and AWS via that gateway box[2]. Data Gateway is a Windows-only application at the moment, so that part is a pain. But it's a relatively minor pain in the grand scheme of BI implementations.

[1] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/desktop-connect-to...

[2] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/service-gateway-ge...

Re: Tableau Software Threatened? Rival Growing at 70% Just Raised $103M

#46

Post by ineedasername »

zhobbs wrote: post #17
ineedasername wrote: post #2

Not really a threat. this article is mostly about Looker, which is a very different product with a significantly higher entry level price tag. Tableau on the other hand is part of the curriculum in many information science programs in colleges, and is significantly embedded in the enterprise sector. it will take significant stagnation on Tableua's part or a black swan type of event to dislodge them any time soon.

"it will take significant stagnation on Tableua's part" As a former customer of Tableau, it feels like this has already happened right? I worked at a company where many teams used it, and there were zero defenders of Tableua when it came time to decide whether to renew...it's a mess, especially on Mac.

my workplace uses both Cognos and Tableau. compared to cognos, tableau is a dream to use. There's some non overlapping functionality in cognos, but where tableau can be used it is greatly preferred. Coming from that "traditional" enterprise BI, tableau feels anything but stagnant. Spotfire seems like the closest competitor, but its barrier for entry went up sharply after acquisition. Power BI has a ways to go (but I think given the tech stack behind MS is the biggest threat to tableau as it matures long term)

Re: Tableau Software Threatened? Rival Growing at 70% Just Raised $103M

#47

Post by manigandham »

nomel wrote: post #38
manigandham wrote: post #24

Tableau is the best at getting non-technical users to be instantly productive, and is completely unmatched in pure analytical abilities and visualizations. They aren't standing still here either. However Tableau has absolutely screwed up their evolution into a cloud-based service. The current single-user desktop software with client/server design is painful and archaic, and the Tableau cloud is just a hosted server r…

> completely unmatched in pure analytical abilities and visualizations. Have you tried looked at Tibco Spotfire? I'd say it's a very good match. I find it much more intuitive than Tableau.

I don't want desktop software from the 90s anymore.

Re: Tableau Software Threatened? Rival Growing at 70% Just Raised $103M

#48

Post by manigandham »

rchaud wrote: post #40
manigandham wrote: post #24

Tableau is the best at getting non-technical users to be instantly productive, and is completely unmatched in pure analytical abilities and visualizations. They aren't standing still here either. However Tableau has absolutely screwed up their evolution into a cloud-based service. The current single-user desktop software with client/server design is painful and archaic, and the Tableau cloud is just a hosted server r…

> Tableau is the best at getting non-technical users to be instantly productive I keep hearing that this is Tableau's big selling point. And yet, as exactly the kind of "non-technical" user coming from the world of Excel, it has been astounding to me just how user-unfriendly Tableau is. Want to create a line chart? No clear way of doing it other than messing around with Tableau's implementation of pivot tables, rando…

There are 2 axis in the chart area or at the top of the window where you can just drag the fields you're interested in. It automatically makes a chart type that fits and you can change it with a click. Did that not work for your data?

PowerBI has no Mac app and supports less data sources, with all the same frustrations of client/server design.

Re: Tableau Software Threatened? Rival Growing at 70% Just Raised $103M

#49

Post by dcposch »

Surprised nobody here mentioned Mode Analytics.

Unlike Looker or Tableau, it requires users to know SQL.

That said: if you're an org where the business people know SQL or are willing to learn--Mode is clean, simple, and super powerful.

My company had a great experience with this. Our COO was super proficient with Excel. I showed him basic SQL, he loves it and has learned quickly. The jump from Excel power user to SQL user is totally doable, and probably most people making custom reports are already at least in the former category!

Additionally, a few of us have substantial Pandas experience: Mode makes it trivial to go from SQL to a Jupyter like notebook w Pandas, Matplotlib, seaborn etc all already there--no need for Python version or dependency hell. Zero devops at any layer below the raw datastore (MySQL / Redshift / etc).

It's really nice. You write code purely against open standards--SQL, pandas etc. Looker uses a proprietary query language, LookML. I am not tempted to go learn it.

Re: Tableau Software Threatened? Rival Growing at 70% Just Raised $103M

#50

Post by ineedasername »

ziont wrote: post #3
ineedasername wrote: post #2

Not really a threat. this article is mostly about Looker, which is a very different product with a significantly higher entry level price tag. Tableau on the other hand is part of the curriculum in many information science programs in colleges, and is significantly embedded in the enterprise sector. it will take significant stagnation on Tableua's part or a black swan type of event to dislodge them any time soon.

2k hook in for the license and then charging half a mil for actually implementing your data and biz model?

Do you mean that as Tableau's cost? Not where I'm at. And maybe you'd have to pay half a mil to implement a data model if you're hiring consultants and starting from scratch, but if you're in such a state that's going to be a cost no matter the product. No product is going to model your data for you or build something like a semantic layer. Those are (mostly) completely separate tasks from the BI layer. Where I'm at we simply pointed Tableau at existing data sources built for performance reporting already.
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