

TIBCO Software then also makes it a little easier on the average end user to identify trends and patterns in data without having to call in an expert to affirm what they think the application is showing them. TIBCO Spotfire is also credited with being able to better process statistical data. TIBCO Spotfire is a little more accessible to the average end user that is not necessarily trained in the arts and sciences of analytics. The one thing that makes the two offerings noticeably different can largely be attributed to the roots TIBCO Spotfire has in business intelligence. Tableau also provides a wide variety of pre-packaged visualizations that reduces the amount of effort that analysts need to make when trying to identify what type of chart lends itself best to a specific data set. As a result, Tableau has gained a large loyal following among analysts who value, for example, the ability to leverage a drag-and-drop visual interface to easily render charts and drop them into other applications such as Microsoft Office 365 or Salesforce customer relationship management (CRM) software. What are the Similarities & Differences between TIBCO Spotfire and Tableau?Īt the core of Tableau is a patented VizQL engine invoked via a graphical user interface (GUI) that Tableau continues to extend with support for new data types and dashboards with every release. The one thing that is clear is that in the months and years ahead, the way analytics applications are accessed and employed is about to change utterly, so organizations should carefully watch how Tableau and TIBCO Software both go about trying to realize that promise. Right now, those capabilities are still relatively nascent. This battle may ultimately turn on which vendor best provides AI capabilities that augment the analytics expertise of the end users. But the latest release of TIBCO Spotfire made it clear that TIBCO Software has recommitted itself to a category it played a key role in establishing in the first place. There’s no doubt that Tableau retains all the benefits of being the market leader in this category. TIBCO Software, however, does offer an instance of its software on a pure consumption model via Amazon Web Services (AWS). Tableau also recently updated its core engine to add support for a vector engine that improves its ability to process geospatial data.īoth Tableau and TIBCO Spotfire can be deployed on-premises or in a cloud environment managed by either company. Similarly, Tableau has been investing in natural language capabilities along with starting to add AI functions designed to augment the analyst user experience. Recently, Tableau recently replaced its in-memory engine to improve its ability to process large amounts of data. Tableau, of course, has hardly been sitting still. In addition, TIBCO Software earlier this year further signaled its willingness to invest in this area by acquiring SnappyData, a provider of a data fabric specifically optimized to integrate various types of data. That release not only added capabilities such as support for streaming data that were already available in Tableau, it also enabled TIBCO Software to deliver a significantly faster version of its software that includes natural language capabilities and some artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. Rather than concede the battle altogether, however, TIBCO Software last year launched TIBCO Spotfire X as part of an effort to regain lost ground. At about that same time, however, Tableau Software was starting to hit its stride and eventually came to be viewed as the dominant leader of the category. As such, TIBCO Spotfire continues to enjoy a loyal base of users of a data visualization tool, especially in vertical industry segments such as health care. Spotfire was one of the early pioneers of data visualization that TIBCO Software acquired way back in 2007.
