Tableau Software's 6.0 Release Delivers Blazing Speed, Blends Data On-The-Fly, Empowering Business Champions

SEATTLE, Nov. 10, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Tableau Software, the global leader in rapid-fire business intelligence (BI) software, today announced the general availability of Tableau 6.0. The release brings a new data engine with blazing speeds to Tableau's signature ease-of-use and visual analytics. Tableau 6.0 shifts BI into the do-it-now era by offering the most flexible solution in the market. It enables everyone—from enterprises to enterprising individuals—to rapidly access and analyze all their data for smarter and faster business decisions.

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According to the market research firm IDC, annual data generation will reach 35 zettabytes by 2020 –enough data to fill a stack of DVDs reaching halfway to Mars. As a result, companies are recognizing the need for easy-to-use tools to help people sift through data in more efficient ways without big IT projects. This trend is reflected in the explosive growth of business intelligence, currently estimated as an $8B industry and projected to reach $12.4B by 2015.

"Tableau 6.0 is filled with innovations that help people take charge of massive data, regardless of their job function or IT capacity," said Christian Chabot, CEO of Tableau Software. "Our new Tableau Data Engine achieves instant query response on hundreds of millions of data rows, even on hardware as basic as a corporate laptop. And it integrates with our ability to 'direct connect' to virtually any database. No other platform allows companies to choose in-memory analytics on gigabytes of data or 'direct connect' to data warehouses like Teradata.  What we have achieved with 6.0 is a computer science breakthrough."

The future of business intelligence is Tableau 6.0 - a true game-changer. New features found in 6.0 include:

• Data blending with one-click: Now people can combine multiple data sources on-the-fly. New data blending capabilities fundamentally change what people can do with data. What was previously a 6-week data integration project is now a drag-and-drop operation with Tableau 6.0. Data can be blended regardless of where it's stored: in enterprise databases, Excel spreadsheets, text files or any combination.
• Analysis at the speed of thought: Tableau's new data engine is faster than existing solutions, allowing users to interactively analyze massive data volumes with instant query times. Unlike most other solutions, it integrates seamlessly with existing corporate data warehouses and infrastructure.
• In-memory without the limitations: The Tableau Data Engine is a break-through analytics database designed to speed data querying by 10 to 100 times and to overcome the limitations of existing databases. When data is too big for in-memory processing, 6.0 provides a flexible architecture that can optimize data processing across all available hardware.

Unveiled in beta form this summer at Tableau's annual customer conference, Tableau 6.0 was demoed and tested by a group of over 1,000 customers who shifted from disbelief to adoption after using the product.

• Leigh Fonseca, customer intelligence manager at Rhapsody "As the largest premium on-demand music service with ten years' worth of data, it used to take us weeks to produce monthly customer analysis reports. With Tableau 6.0 it's done almost instantly and allows our teams to address complex business questions and drill into specifics to quickly reveal trends and insights. The better we understand our customer base, the better we can provide them service and effectively work with our labels and other partners. Tableau 6.0 is one of the most exciting and powerful programs I've ever come across."
• Heather Torres, chief data scientist at AOL "We have been beta-testing Tableau 6.0 and are excited about many of the new features.  The new Tableau Data Engine will give our team the ability to take large data sets and work with them offline with amazing performance speeds - without the need to write any special code.  One of the new visual enhancements has allowed us to create animated visualizations showing how data literally moves over time!  Tableau 6.0 reminds me why we chose this product in the first place - it gives people the power to do things they have only dreamed of."

According to Rita Sallam, research director for IT analyst firm Gartner, "While projects to improve decision making, identify operating efficiencies and risk, and attract new customers more cost-effectively continue, the need to do more with less — more quickly — has increased companies' interest in new business intelligence options which challenge the traditional choices." In fact, Tableau was identified as a "Challenger" in this year's Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms*.

For more information, join Tableau for "6 Education Day" where "6 Experts" will be answering questions and discussing the "joy of 6" throughout the day. To get educated on 6.0 and to download a free trial, visit http://www.tableausoftware.com.

*Gartner, Inc., Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms, Rita Sallam et al, January 29, 2010.

About Gartner Magic Quadrant

The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted 2010 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner's analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the "Leaders" quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About Tableau Software

Tableau Software is the leading provider of fast analytics and rapid-fire business intelligence software. Our award-winning products enable anyone to easily create and share interactive data visualizations, dashboards and analytics. They scale to organizations of any size or reach. Download free trials of our award-winning products at http://www.tableausoftware.com/trial. For more information, please visit us at http://www.tableausoftware.com.

SOURCE Tableau Software