Salesforce and Tableau (its all good!)

In the same week that Google bought Looker in a surprise acquisition that allows them to believe they can start playing with the big boys in the visualizations playing field, no one quite expected Salesforce to acquire Tableau.

In reading many articles and thinking about this from different perspectives, I have come to the conclusion that the Salesforce and Tableau marriage is a good match, that will not only strengthen Tableau's position in leading the visualization space, but will ensure that the new kid on block (Power BI), stays in 2nd place. Glooker (as I call it), have some way to go, until the 'big boys' let them play.

I firmly believe that Salesforce and Tableau together, paves the way for increased market share. It will improve Tableau's CRM interoperability, it will naturally open the door for organizations that have a reporting tool, but need a CRM. On the flip side, if you have a CRM, the natural progression for a reporting system is obvious.

The future of this acquisition is exciting. Just think...Tableau already allows the use of natural language analytics, how cool will this be, if the worlds largest and most popular CRM answers questions naturally and creates insights on the fly, all inside a CRM? Where can this go? only the future knows. This can massively change the way organisations use and report on their customer data.

In the meantime, Tableau will continue to run as a separate company. they will continue to be the number 1 player in the viz space, and continue to empower data in the way we all know and love. I'm all for it.