One expected byproduct of the Big Data movement is data democracy, delivering useful and consumable analytics to everyone within an enterprise organization.  Though true data democracy is seemingly light years away, given the software integration and usability challenges that remain between IT and end users, there are a handful of companies addressing these obstacles, disrupting the Big Data industry.

According to Wikibon Principal Analyst Jeff Kelly, one of the biggest hurdles in achieving data democracy is IT as an unnecessary middleman, a step that must be eliminated if end users are to truly benefit from direct access to Business Intelligence programs.

In a recent post, Kelly highlights the major disruptors in the Big Data space, who offer legacy-compatable products and design that allows businesses to bypass the IT department.  Despite the progress, Kelly recognizes the difficulties in circumventing IT.

“The risks include risk-averse IT departments preventing business users from adopting these self-service business intelligence applications and instead clinging to BI shelfware from legacy vendors, as well as the potential for new vendors themselves to lose focus and add bloatware to their products to placate IT,” Kelly warns.

The road may be long, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel.  Ahead of #BigDataNYC, our event during Big Data Week in New York exploring these very real issues surrounding BI solutions, here’s a recap of Kelly’s list, which names Tableau Software, QlikTech, Platfora and Datameer as the notable disruptors striving for true data democracy.

4 BI Disruptors in Big Data Democracy

Tableau Software

Tableau Software is a data visualization company based in Seattle.  It’s Tableau Desktop tool lets you drag and drop data and analyze it in an instant, while its Server product is a web-based business analytics tool that anyone can use.  Also in Tableau’s caddy is Online, a hosted version of Server that lets you share dashboards with your whole company as well as with customers and partners in minutes.  Finally there’s Tableau Public, which lets anyone create interactive visuals and publish them quickly without the help of IT.

In May, Tableau debuted on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker DATA and raised $254.2 million by selling shares at $31 apiece.  Before its IPO, Tableau raised $10 million in Series B funding in 2008 in a round led by New Enterprise Associates, Inc., who also invested in the company back in 2004, raising $5 million in a Series A funding.

Tableau OEM partners include mFoundry, GE Healthcare Performance Management Solutions, IBM ILOG, to name a few.

QlikTech

Radnor, Pennsylvania-based Business Intelligence software provider QlikTech offers the QlikView Business Discovery Platform which lets businesses consolidate relevant data from multiple sources into a single application, exploring the associations in your data.  It also enables social decision-making through secure, real-time collaboration, and lets you visualize data with engaging graphics.

QlikTech lets you search across all data—directly and indirectly, interact with dynamic apps, dashboards and analytics, and allow them to access, analyze and capture data from mobile devices.  Aside from that, QlikView also offers online and on-site training services to help you and your employees get the most out of the service.

The company publicly launched in July 2010 under the ticker QLIK in NASDAQ, selling  common stock at $10.00 per share.  QlikTech received $12.5 million in a venture capital round funding from Accel Partners and JVP (Jerusalem Venture Partners).

Its OEM partners include HP and Intel, with customers such as DB Schenker, Dendrite, Ericsson, and the Swedish Post.

Platfora

Platfora is a software company based in San Mateo, California, that transforms Apache Hadoop from a batch engine into a subsecond-interactive, exploratory business intelligence and analytics platform designed for business analysts.  It’s built on HTML5 so there is no per-user-licensing limits, and is accessible anywhere.  Powered by Fractal Cache, Platfora transforms massive datasets into highly responsive lenses.

In 2011,  Platfora closed a $5.7 million series A funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz.  And in November 2012, the company closed a $20 million Series B round of funding led by Battery Ventures with the participation of existing backers Andreessen Horowitz and Sutter Hill Venture chipped in as well.  The company hasn’t gone public yet.

Datameer

Headquartered in San Mateo, California, Datameer is a software development company that specializes in the analysis of large volumes of data for business users of Apache Hadoop.  The Datameer solution is a business integration platform for Hadoop which includes data source integration, an analytics engine with a spreadsheet interface designed for business users with over 240 analytic functions and visualizations including reports, charts and dashboards.  It is available for all major Hadoop distribution platforms such as  Apache, Cloudera, EMC Greenplum HD, IBM BigInsights, MapR, Yahoo! and Amazon.

Datameer raised $2.5 million in Series A funding in April 2010 led by Redpoint Ventures, followed by a $9 million Series B funding led by Kleiner Perkins with the participation of Redpoint in May 2011, and a $6 million venture round funding in September 2012 from its existing investors Redpoint and Kleiner.  The company has yet to go public.