UPDATED 07:30 EDT / APRIL 15 2015

Birst and Tableau partner in another marriage of BI rivals

handshake  behind a corporative building.Great for any design.In an arrangement that symbolizes the craziness of the rapidly evolving business intelligence (BI) market, Birst, Inc. and Tableau Software, Inc. today announced a partnership that will combine Birst’s data extraction and normalization engine with Tableau’s popular visualization software via an ODBC connector.

What makes the deal a bit of a head-scratcher is that the two companies also compete head-to-head, but executives from both firms asserted that coopetition is part of the new normal in a market that is rapidly shedding 20-year-old technology for a new crop of faster and simpler alternatives.

“Birst creates analytic-ready data, and nothing lights that up better than Tableau,” said Dan Jewett, Tableau’s vice president of product management. “It highlights the transition from older way of doing things to the modern way,” in which data integration is considered part of a workflow rather than a technical task performed by data scientists.

Both companies have certainly been riding high of late. Tableau stock has nearly doubled in the last year, pegging its valuation at $7 billion on a stratospheric price/earnings ratio of nearly 1,200. Birst has raised $129 million, including a $65 million round just last month, and is considered by many people to be a prime candidate for an initial public offering.

A lot of the excitement comes from the fact that both companies are competing in markets that have been dominated by heavyweights like IBM, Oracle, SAP and Microsoft. While no one is expecting those companies to wither away, the complexity of their platforms makes them vulnerable to competitors that can exploit the surging popularity of analytics. “We’re in a position to disrupt the BI marketplace,” said Birst CEO Jay Larson.

And even if the BI stalwarts hold their positions, there’s still opportunity for companies like Birst and Tableau to prosper by riding on their coattails. For example, last fall Birst and SAP did a deal that was essentially the reverse of the Tableau arrangement, with SAP providing the database muscle for Birst’s analytic front-end.

Not surprisingly, the deal isn’t exclusive on either party’s part, although executive said the companies will co-sell each other’s products. “Customers have been asking us to put these products together,” said Birst Chairman Brad Peters, echoing remarks he made about SAP six months ago. “We approached Tableau and they were excited about this possibility as well.”

Peters acknowledged that the web of alliances between BI competitors can be confusing, but added that “The BI label is incredibly broad.” The link-up with Tableau “is a combination of two products that you might not have thought would work well together but which mesh beautifully,” he said.

Tableau has back-end connection and data preparation technology, “but it’s not the level of sophistication of the Birst platform,” Jewett said. Customers will have a choice. The Birst connectivity is available now at no charge to customers of either firm.


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