Is Tableau dead? 💀

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Is Tableau dead? 💀 I've been thinking about the future of the tool a lot lately, and here's my thoughts 🧵

Before I continue I have to acknowledge the layoffs that just happened at Salesforce. It seems like it's hit Tableau especially hard and it sucks to see such talented people lose their jobs. I hope everyone will be able to land on their feet quickly. nytimes.com/2023/01/04/technology/salesforce-layoffs.html

To tackle the original question of "Is Tableau Dead?" we have to analyze why people are proposing it in the first place. So really the question is... Why are people pessimistic about the future of Tableau?

There's a lot of ways to go about this, but I'll break it down into three main categories. Then give some predictions and a conclusion. 1️⃣ Ecosystem 2️⃣ Community/Culture 3️⃣ AI/Machine Learning ------- 4️⃣ Predictions 5️⃣ Conclusion

1️⃣ ECOSYSTEM In the coming 3-5 years I believe tableau will lose more and more market share to Power BI. Let me explain...

Salesforce recently acquired Slack for $27 billion. At face value this seems great. Those using slack think "Wow this is great, so many people use slack". nytimes.com/2020/12/01/technology/salesforce-slack-deal.html

But market share shows us something else... Teams is becoming a beast and the likelihood your company switches to it increases by the day. I can hear people telling me now. "So you're saying Tableau is dead because of Microsoft Teams integration with Power BI?".

No, I'm not. But I am saying the Microsoft business ecosystem is nearly unstoppable. Think about the foundational apps companies use. Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Outlook. Office 365 is an all in one bundle. Remember, it's not just the tool that's important. It's the ecosystem.

Oh btw, Microsoft owns Skype and at some point will completely switch everyone to teams. Meaning Microsoft would have an 85% market share for communication.

Aaaaand Microsoft owns Windows, which means they can do things like this. And Windows has a 76% market share btw. theverge.com/2021/6/24/22549191/skype-windows-11-microsoft-teams

I hope you can see what I'm getting at. Microsoft owns and operates things that are foundational building blocks for large portions of the market. So it's inevitable IMO that one of their tools (Power BI) increases market share because of these facts 🤷‍♂️

2️⃣ COMMUNITY/CULTURE Tableau has an amazing community and is one of the reasons I've kept up with it for so long. But it's slowly withering.

The user community have been at odds with the direction of things for some time. Displeasure with new features that are mostly focused around integrations, instead of quality of life improvements that have been sitting on the ideas page for a decade. community.tableau.com/s/ideas

These feature decisions haven't really made people switch completely But it has made users question their future with the tool and has increased the likelihood they look into a different tool Or take that job with a different company that uses a different tool It's a slow burn

Tableau product managers have told me directly "We want to do the things you're talking about, but we literally have to focus on Salesforce". I feel for them. They want to improve things, but have their hands tied. Which leads me into Salesforce culture...

I don't want to speculate here, so I'll only mention things I've seen reported and have been told. It appears that salesforce acquires companies, then forces their culture on them. With little regard for the acquired company. twitter.com/kyliebytes/status/1611187831870980096?s=20&t=kKq0WPX2cTQFTkEoU8mOcg

It also seems like Executives at Salesforce are only interested in Salesforce. They have little interest in understanding these acquired companies, the people in them or the culture/community they've built. They care about acquiring and jamming the acquired into their ecosystem

Obviously multiple things can be true. I guarantee there's people at Salesforce that genuinely care and only want the best. But I think it's a minority.

Just look at the amount of people that attended the Dreamforce VizGames. It's not a direct correlation, but it doesn't seem like something is catching on over there.

I want to clarify that I don't work at these companies and this is my perspective as an outsider. Please feel free to add your own stories and opinions below. Would love to hear from you.

3️⃣ AI/MACHINE LEARNING Tableau for the last few years has been pushing AI and Machine Learning hard, and for good reason. AI is inevitable and will drastically change the ways in which we interact with everything. But Tableau was too heavy handed IMO tableau.com/solutions/ai-analytics

It appears like they focused lots of time on features like: Ask Data Explain Data Data Stories Einstein Discovery Data Stories There's much debate about the usefulness of these features. I'm on the side of not being useful. But for a different reason than you might think...

They're useful in theory, which means the reason for their existence makes sense (although the marketing is confusing for users). IMO they're not useful because they're just not good enough. In recent months we've started to see what "good enough" means .vox.com/recode/2022/12/7/23498694/ai-artificial-intelligence-chat-gpt-openai

Tools like ChatGPT and Dall-E have changed the ways in which we perceive AI. It went from "Ya AI is just a buzzword people use for marketing decks". To "Ok this is pretty crazy, I can actually use this in my day to day work".

But here's the thing, these tools were just released and were created by a cream of the crop AI research and deployment company. I'd say there's only a few companies that could create something at that level.

It's not to say Salesforce couldn't create something at the level needed to be truly useful in users day to day lives. But they're years and years away.

So what does this mean for Tableau? It means the current AI/Machine Learning features are years and years away from being truly useful to users. I think Microsoft is self aware they're in the same boat and is starting to adapt accordingly. theguardian.com/technology/2023/jan/05/microsoft-chatgpt-bing-search-engine

The years of AI/Machine learning development at Tableau may all be for not, because companies can just start licensing out to these cream of the crop AI companies. I wish they instead focused on significantly improving the development experience for day to day users.

My prediction is that there will be a few companies that focus on Artificial General Intelligence. These models will be able to understand or learn any intellectual task that a human being can. Companies will pay for the right to use the models in their tools.

I know people are going to respond. "No, these Tableau features are helpful for xyz reason". And you're absolutely correct. Remember that multiple things can be true at the same time. There are in fact users getting use from them...

But the masses will not adopt them in current state. AI must hit escape velocity for it to happen. Give it 7 years

4️⃣ PREDICTIONS -Tableau will integrate more and more with Salesforce. Total user base will stay the same or increase, just switch hands. Tableau customers before Salesforce acquisition will start moving to another platform (unless they're heavily integrated into salesforce).

-Those heavily integrated in Salesforce CRM will see Tableau as a good add and will continue to use salesforce into the future and add more seats post Q2 2024.

-Power BI will slowly chip away at current Tableau user base due to ecosystem. -Tableau AI features won't be adopted at scale until AI reaches escape velocity.

-Hardcore Tableau users will use the tool until the wheels come off. Meaning, there's nothing that could be said to get them to switch. The Tableau of years past really built something amazing.

-2023 will be a brutal years for SaaS companies, so more Salesforce layoffs a strong possibility (let's hope this is completely wrong).

5️⃣ CONCLUSION I don't care about Tableau the tool. I care about the people associated to it. It's not what the tool can do. It's about the connections and opportunities that come from it.

Back to the original question 🤷‍♂️ Is Tableau dead? No, of course not. It'll just look different from what you're used to. The changes may or may not suit you, and you'll have to act accordingly. But what won't change are the connections. Important reminder.

Please feel free to voice your opinion. I'd love to hear from others. What did I get right? What did I get wrong? There's a lot of nuance to this convo and I know I'm missing things. Needed to focus on a few areas. Much Love 🤙✌️