Alteryx COO George Mathew In theCUBE

Breaking rules laid down by legacy enterprise platforms, Tableau Software and Alteryx Inc. encourage sharing and self-reliance, emphasizing the user experience above all. Alteryx COO George Mathew spoke with theCUBE’s Jeff Kelly and John Furrier at the Tableau Data 14 conference about the profound changes occurring in the business intelligence and analytics space and why Tableau and Alteryx play such key roles (see full interview below).

With 180 joint customers, Alteryx provides Tableau users the ability to “make the data prep, the data blending, the visual work flow information to an analytical model, into a Tableau data extract, directly into a workbook” as seamless continuum, Mathew explained. Alteryx confronts the initial challenge that business analysts face: getting appropriate data. Recently “it’s been about how to blend it,” the COO went on. Data may come from various sources; from Hadoop or Excel spreadsheets, or across various boundaries. Alteryx puts management capabilities into the hands of the users.

The relationship between Tableau and Alteryx, Mathew explained, is a natural one. Using a car metaphor, Mathew described Alteryx as the “cylinders and pistons” that provide a “seamless repeatable injection of data.” Tableau, meanwhile, he cast as the dashboard with which customers interact. While drivers need both dash and pistons, Matt

hew commented that the pistons make the dashboard more relevant, much as Alteryx blending of data needs to occur before visual analysis can happen in Tableau.

The step beyond blending

Forty-two percent of Alteryx customers that begin with data blending, Mathew said, “are immediately going to spatial problem solving, predictive problem solving, and then output to Tableau.” Mathew shared that be believes operationalizing work needs to happen just as seamlessly as visualization happens in Tableau. This is why Alteryx aims to be the type of tool “you don’t need to be a programmer to understand.” It’s a drag-and-drop interface and, according to Mathew, users can “introduce predictive capability just as easily as prep.”

Offering Vertical options on a horizontal platform

While Tableau is a horizontal platform, adding Alteryx to the equation enables a more vertical approach. Mathew explained that Business Intelligence has typically made observations “from the rearview mirror…Alteryx enables the next best decision.” It can give clients insight into who their “next 20 best customers are, and make that very seamless to repeatably automate.” The model has played itself out in Tableau because Alteryx is “largely horizontal solutions that get applied with a very interesting vertical IP.” That IP is packaged in the Tableau platform. Alteryx and Tableau joint customers, Mathew said, build, “the best models in Alteryx and the best biz and analytics in Tableau.”

Alteryx adds a vertical dimension its horizontal platform by leveraging its users and partners, encouraging customers to use the Alteryx public cloud infrastructure, Gallery.Alteryx.com, “as a sharing experience” for best practices and use cases. Tableau, he says, does the same thing with their tableau Public infrastructure. It’s been very successful: “We have hundreds of thousands of users signed up, tens of thousands of users actively using the analytics infrastructure within Gallery.Alteryx.com.” Mathew considers Gallery.Alteryx.com as the primary area where “that collaboration, sharing and best practices emerge.”

Stepping away from the “old school model” of enterprise software

Tableau and Alteryx are clear counter points to older enterprise platforms. Both place a high premium on “self reliance,” whereas legacy platforms offered a “very authored experience.” Tableau and Alteryx uses blend data, create analytical models, and push those models out to a platform all on their own.

Citing the number of attendees and team members at the Tableau Data 14 conference, which Mathew put at around 7,000 in comparison to the previous year’s 3,200. “Literally,” he said, “this market is doubling in participation.”

Because companies like Tableau and Alteryx place offer their customers self reliance, Mathew said, “the power is going back to the people.” He believes that the industry is undergoing “a decade of generational change.”

Part of that change is a fundamental reinvention of the analytics and business analytics space. Tableau and Alteryx, according to Mathew, is the centerpiece of how that reinvention is occurring, especially as Tableau releases products with enhanced cloud capabilities.

Mathew predicted that while these changes are exciting, there are “a lot more innings in the baseball game.” He expects innovation and reinvention to continue for years to come.

photo credit: just.Luc via photopin cc