Tableau Software
Encyclopedia
Tableau Software is an American computer software
company headquartered in Seattle, WA, USA. It produces a family of interactive data visualization
products focused on business intelligence
, and is reportedly anticipating revenue of $30 million to $40 million in 2010.
’s Department of Computer Science between 1997 and 2002. Professor Pat Hanrahan
led research in the use of table-based displays to browse multidimensional relational databases along with his Ph.D. student Chris Stolte who specialized in visualization techniques for exploring and analyzing relational databases and data cubes. Together, they combined a structured query language for databases with a descriptive language for rendering graphics and invented a database visualization language called VizQL (Visual Query Language). VizQL formed the core of the Polaris system, an interface for exploring large multi-dimensional databases. Tableau was spun out of Stanford in 2003 with an eponymous software application. The product queries relational databases, cubes
and spreadsheets, and generates a number of graph types.
Tableau's products have been incorporated into product suites of multiple independent software vendors, including Oracle
for its Oracle Essbase Visual Explorer
product.
On February 11, 2010, Tableau released a fourth product line named Tableau Public. It is a free-to-use program that offers analytic capability, with the limitations that visualizations are limited to 100K rows of data and can only be saved to the Tableau Public servers.
after they started publishing US embassy cables. Although the company stated it was not a decision that they took lightly, they also stated it was directly due to political pressure:
Computer software
Computer software, or just software, is a collection of computer programs and related data that provide the instructions for telling a computer what to do and how to do it....
company headquartered in Seattle, WA, USA. It produces a family of interactive data visualization
Data visualization
Data visualization is the study of the visual representation of data, meaning "information that has been abstracted in some schematic form, including attributes or variables for the units of information"....
products focused on business intelligence
Business intelligence
Business intelligence mainly refers to computer-based techniques used in identifying, extracting, and analyzing business data, such as sales revenue by products and/or departments, or by associated costs and incomes....
, and is reportedly anticipating revenue of $30 million to $40 million in 2010.
History
The company traces its roots to academic research in Stanford UniversityStanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
’s Department of Computer Science between 1997 and 2002. Professor Pat Hanrahan
Pat Hanrahan
Pat Hanrahan is a computer graphics researcher, the Canon USA Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering in the Computer Graphics Laboratory at Stanford University....
led research in the use of table-based displays to browse multidimensional relational databases along with his Ph.D. student Chris Stolte who specialized in visualization techniques for exploring and analyzing relational databases and data cubes. Together, they combined a structured query language for databases with a descriptive language for rendering graphics and invented a database visualization language called VizQL (Visual Query Language). VizQL formed the core of the Polaris system, an interface for exploring large multi-dimensional databases. Tableau was spun out of Stanford in 2003 with an eponymous software application. The product queries relational databases, cubes
OLAP cube
An OLAP cube is a data structure that allows fast analysis of data. It can also be defined as the capability of manipulating and analyzing data from multiple perspectives...
and spreadsheets, and generates a number of graph types.
Products
Tableau Software offers three main products: Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server and Tableau Reader.Tableau's products have been incorporated into product suites of multiple independent software vendors, including Oracle
Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...
for its Oracle Essbase Visual Explorer
Essbase
Essbase is a multidimensional database management system that provides a multidimensional database platform upon which to build analytic applications. Essbase, whose name derives from "Extended Spread Sheet dataBASE", began as a product of Arbor Software, which merged with Hyperion Software in 1998...
product.
On February 11, 2010, Tableau released a fourth product line named Tableau Public. It is a free-to-use program that offers analytic capability, with the limitations that visualizations are limited to 100K rows of data and can only be saved to the Tableau Public servers.
Awards
Tableau Software has won awards including "Best Overall in Data Visualization" by DM Review, "Best of 2005 for Data Analysis" by PC Magazine, and more recently "2008 Best Business Intelligence Solution (CODiE award)" by the Software & Information Industry Association.Withdrawal of services from Wikileaks
On December 2, 2010, Tableau was one of the first companies to withdraw support from WikiLeaksWikileaks
WikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...
after they started publishing US embassy cables. Although the company stated it was not a decision that they took lightly, they also stated it was directly due to political pressure:
- "Our decision to remove the data from our servers came in response to a public request by Senator Joe Lieberman, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee, when he called for organizations hosting WikiLeaks to terminate their relationship with the website."
External links
- Tableau Software - Fast Analytics and Rapid-fire Business Intelligence
- Tableau Public - Free Data Visualization Software