Is Tableau Dead?

The release of Gartner’s latest Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms?Magic Quadrant?Report?has come with?a number of?interesting observations. While Microsoft’s Power BI continues to establish its market dominance at the head of the field, the previous industry leader, Tableau, seems to be slipping further down the charts in Gartner’s book, occupying a position that looks dangerously closer to the challenger block of Qlik or Google’s Looker than Microsoft’s stable?spot at the top of the hill.?

It’s?way too early to count Tableau out of the game, and the number two position in the field of Business Intelligence is still theirs for the?foreseeable?future. But unless the company makes some changes, and quick, they seem to be on the down slope, and?that’s?not a position any organization wants to be in – especially not in a field full of eager and hungry competitors like data analytics and BI.?So,?all of this begs the question:?What’s?going on with Tableau, and why has Microsoft been able to take its place at the top of the BI field??

The Rise of Tableau?

Tableau’s history is in many ways a classic, even inspiring success story of innovation and good BI design. They’ve been in the game of modern business intelligence for as long as anybody, founded almost two decades ago in 2003?as a business intelligence company with a philosophy centered around easy-to-use data visualization.?

So not only did they enter the market early,?but,?they?also?came?with a quality product that was both simple and robust. Tableau struck just the right balance between ease of use and data?analytics complexity, andanalytics complexity and?were rewarded with a loyal and large fanbase that?persists to this day?on Tableau’s theme of “a tool designed for data geeks by data?geeks”..”?More than that, they kept working diligently on their product, and it?didn’t?just keep up with market changes; Tableau thrived like a kid at the top of the class,?and for many years it was hard to deny it was the best product on the market. By Gartner’s own magic quadrant, Tableau was ranked as a leader from 2012 onward, and in 2014 it took the spot at the top of the quadrant as the leading player in the industry, a position it held until 2017.?

Nobody can say that Tableau didn’t work hard to get and keep that spot, and it showed.?A virile data model, easy-to-use philosophy and quality customer support?helped Tableau to cultivate not only a top-of-the-line BI service, but also a devoutly loyal fanbase to use it.?

The Cracks Appear?

In recent years, challenges to Tableau’s business model, changes in the BI?industry as a whole, and?internal integration issues have caused an unfortunate series of problems for Tableau that threaten its seat as a top driver of data modeling.?The biggest of these overarching problems has been the tendency of BI?as a whole towards?the cloud, an area that has never been Tableau’s?region of focus.?Tableau’s user base and customer loyalty was built mostly through on-premises deployment, and that’s what their service specializes in. Now, with more and more business intelligence and data analytics users looking for cloud-based solutions, Tableau is likely going to have to adjust if it wants to keep its market share, and that’s not an easy ask for a company that’s built most of its infrastructure around the on-premises market.?

Secondly, Tableau was acquired by Salesforce in 2019, and although the acquisition allowed for new, exciting opportunities like the integration of Salesforce as a tool for Tableau, it’s also come with all the challenges and hazards associated with any merger.?Time spent integrating the services has been time not spent fine-tuning either for the changing marketplace,?and the user experience that Tableau has built itself on has suffered some as a result. In an industry where every data point matters, even small bumps in the road can be real issues, and the 2019 acquisition has had its fair share of bumps.?

Finally, Salesforce’s strategy of marketing heavily towards its already existent customer base could be?potential?cause for concern, as although?this?could lead to deep integration between two large user groups and through it a large influx in new profits, it might also hamstring Tableau’s expansion into future demographics or their capacity for wider appeal.?

Despite these new challenges, Tableau also remains prohibitively expensive when compared to?a number of?other industry leaders like Microsoft’s Power BI. One of the major reasons for Power BI’s high position on the ladder is its relative inexpensiveness, with full creative licenses starting?at?$9.99 a month per user.?Tableau is seven times more expensive, with its cheapest creative license starting at $70 a month per user.?This price point is a major detractor, as Tableau?has to?promise a significantly better and more stable service to justify its high overhead.?

Tableau’s Future?

Despite these challenges, Tableau is still one of the?best drivers of data modeling?on the market, and it’s a beloved choice by many users for its simple data visualizations and friendly, straightforward consumer?experience.?But its slipping on the Gartner Magic Quadrant represents real and serious problems within the company, and it’ll need to address these issues sooner rather than later if it wants to stay competitive.?

At the moment, it really does look like Tableau is losing the BI wars, competing with products that can offer cheaper price tags, better Cloud service, and more stable platforms for business intelligence.?But it’s not down and out, and at the end of the day, Tableau’s future is in its own hands (or,?really, the hands of?Salesforce, since they’re the ones who own it now).?Whether or not Tableau will continue to be a top player in the 2020’s will likely largely depend on how well the company adapts?and improves?to challenges external and internal, although Tableau does have a history as a resilient corporation.?Salesforce’s heavy strategy of recent years in pursuing customers already in their domain may prove problematic in this regard in upcoming years.?

In any case, Tableau will be an interesting case to watch in upcoming years as it fights to regain its position at the top of the heap and defend itself from other?big-name?challengers like Amazon and Google that?seek?to carve out a?portion?of the BI marketplace for themselves.?It’ll?be an uphill battle to be sure, but who knows? If Tableau can once more display the kind of innovation?and grit that put it at the forefront of the business intelligence industry in the first place,?nothing’s?off the cards.?