Sudharshan Seerapu, Cisco’s Lead Architect on Tableau and Tidal Enterprise Scheduler, hopped into theCUBE at the recently concluded Tableau Customer Conference to share the power user perspective on data visualization.

Seerapu’s Tableau journey began about a year ago, when he started looking for a self-service business intelligence tool that would empower his less tech savvy peers to unlock the value of their data. He eventually stumbled upon Tableau’s data visualization software, which he promptly adopted on the basis that it’s simpler and more scalable than alternative tools.

Seerapu explains that the firm’s platform not only streamlines large-scale projects, but also facilitates the rapid prototyping of concepts that could not be easily implemented otherwise. Highlighting the simplicity of the software, Seerapu notes that he used Tableau at home to add Hindi autocomplete to the Netflix search box.

Native collaboration is another major benefit of Tableau: unlike Excel, it empowers users to share information with their peers. Seerapu admits that Tableau does not yet match up to the data manipulation functions available with Microsoft’s spreadsheet tool, but says that the platform makes up for it with more mature visualization capabilities.

Seerapu is waiting on the company to release Linux and Mac versions of its software. In the meantime, he’s looking into Tableau Online. The cloud-based service promises to lift the management burden off IT organizations, address security concerns, and make it easier for users to share visualizations with colleagues, clients and partners.

Click the video below for the full highlights from the interview, including more on the value of visualization in data-driven organizations.