Tableau Software is presenting with
Elissa Fink, VP of Marketing and
Dan Jewett, VP Product Management. Note the depth of the
Tableau management team.
Elissa started with an overview of the company. Headquartered in Seattle, the company was started in 2003 by Stanford Professor Pat Hanrahan and Dr. Chris Stolte, who did pioneering research in information visualization. See a description of the
Polaris project at Stanford along with a more recent
ACM article. Note dedication to Jim Gray.
Enterprise customers include Google, Microsoft, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Safeway, Pfizer, Merck, Ferrari, GM, and CBS. Plus, 5,550 customer licenses for their desktop version. There are three versions: Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, and Tableau Public. Tableau Desktop is licensed by individuals for either $1,000 (with connectors to desktop data like Excel and Access) and $2,000 (with full set of connectors like ODBC databases).
The sales model has focused on selling licenses for 1-5 desktops, which is done through low-cost tele-sales. This approach has enabled Tableau to establish a beachhead in the enterprise. Tableau is now expanding its sales to corporate accounts by nurturing the desktop adopters. These account reps are young and energetic, tele-selling $80k to $100K deals. Tableau is establish a direct sales unit to contact enterprise IT shops directly.
Tableau's revenue last year $20M, with a 123% increase this year. They have been profitable since start-up. VC investment has been $5M in 200 and $10M in 2009 ...all of which is still in the bank! Tableau has 99 employees in 2009, about 180 now, and expect to be over 200 by end of this year. There are
open job positions in development and sales mostly in Seattle, but also other positions and at San Mateo.
Dan continued with a product demo. The Data bar on the left allows you to drag dimensions and measures to specify the chart. This chart shows sales by region against product categories. The cells are horizontal bars showing the sales amounts, while the color of the bars show profit and width of the bars show time-to-ship. What products would you want to sell and from which regions? Click on the chart to see the full detail.
After the break, Dan explained Version 6, which will be available on November 9. The themes for the new version are: big fast data, data blending, visual analytics, calculations & parameters, and server manageability. The main enhancement is the data engine, which will load compressed data into memory and allow swapping with disk. Dan also showed "data blending" by federating several data sets interactively. There are also additional analytics that will allow a single chart displaying multiple viz with differing levels of detail. For example, Dan showed home sales data for Seattle, where the median price by month with individual home overlayed. Several more demos were impressive. Nice animation controls.
Tableau offers a
14-day trial; however, wait a couple of weeks to try the new version 6.
My Take...
Tableau is an impressive company with impressive products. Coming from humble academic beginnings, they have built a profitable business that has long-term growth potential. The analytic mindset of corporate professionals is still at an embryonic stage. Tools like Tableau can be effective catalyst to mature the analytic culture in your company...if executives insist that all major business decisions be data driven rather than politically or emotionally determined. Data can lie, but with tools in Tableau the facts tend to dominate, and lies are more difficult to tell.
