 Live from Seattle, Washington, it's the Cube at Tableau Conference 2014 brought to you by headline sponsor Tableau Here are your hosts John Furrier and Jeff Kelly Welcome back everybody. This is the Cube. I'm Jeff Kelly with Wikibon. You're watching our live coverage of Tableau Conference 2014 we're here in Seattle, Washington. We're getting close to the end of day two of coverage. We've had a great two days One of the themes we're certainly seeing here at Tableau Conference is the partner ecosystem and the ecosystem that has built up around Tableau In a segment joined by Joe Pasquale who's the SPP of strategy and product management and Mark logic a Tableau partner and Paul Wilford who is the global director of technology partnerships at Tableau welcome guys Jeff good to see you again. Good good to have you back on the Cube Paul and and Joe so let's talk a little bit Paul about We were just talking before we went on the the exhibit hall is getting a little crowded down there I think you mentioned 53 sponsors of the show this year talk about the you know Tableau is exploding on a number of levels employees customers revenue and partners to talk about the partner ecosystem. How that's developing Yeah, we've got a great partner ecosystem. It's really developing well, so we have 53 sponsors this year And you know they really we're a pure play tool in what we do and our partners really help us Make sure that our customers are successful most importantly So we partner with best of breed companies and we try to deliver Integrations that really further the needs of our customers So yeah, I mean as this ecosystem grows. How do you how do you manage this and how do you go about? Selecting partners because I'm sure you've got a lot of companies that want to partner with you And it could be a lot bigger number than 53 down there But clearly you've you've got to pick and choose and be smart about who you partner with and how you do that What's your strategy? Yeah, so we really try to look where there are gaps in the market and gaps in customer need and Fill it with partners that are that are at the top of the class that supporting that You know, we'll have some hedge in that obviously you want to have choices for customers You don't want to let force them to pick a single solution So I think about partners and especially technology partners as customer assets and we want to leverage an asset We don't want you to have to rip the data out and do something else What else would that we want you to be able to use the assets you invest in so it's important that we Continue to grow and continue to scale to meet the needs of the growing customer demand Yeah, I mean I think one of the one of the challenges I think for Tableau as you grow is that you know to keep that customer focus because that's always a challenge for any companies They scale is really keeping You know their finger on the pulse of customer I think what you're going to need to do to some extent is rely on their partner So it's important that you choose them wisely and that they fit with the culture and your approach to Dilling with your customers. Yeah, there's absolutely no doubt. I mean we love partners that are customer centric and Put the customer at the forefront And one of the reasons I'm at Tableau is I love I was a former customer And I love the focus that Tableau has on the customer and so it's it's one of our differentiators Yeah, that's well and again That's a theme we seem to come across every time we visit with Tableau is that a lot of the employees are former customers So Joe in terms of your approach with Tableau at Mark logic obviously an important partnership talk a little bit about kind of the The benefits of partnering with a company like Tableau and what that does for kind of your reach to new markets new customers and Kind of helping your customers do more with your product Yeah, it's it's very important for us our customers as I was saying a moment ago. They they really are Looking at how to get the most out of their data Whether it's because they're required to or they have an opportunity to and they really look to Tableau as one of the leaders in the space for for being able to to drive more value out of the data and In our partnership with with Tableau They've been a really great partner and work with us to create a connector That's specifically for Mark logic custom built for Mark logic. That's going to be shipping in Weeks, I think yeah within the next month or so Yeah, talk about you know the let's get into the you know the real details of the partnership in terms of You know working together from a technology perspective. Is there a go to market? Arrangement as well. What's the kind of the details? Yeah, so so looking I'll start from the technology perspective One of the things that that we've worked on hard together is How do we provide? More value to Tableau's customers and ultimately our customers as well by letting them get to some of the capabilities That aren't available in some of the other data sources. So being able to go in from Tableau Do all of the kinds of things that that you're used to doing with Tableau, but then also You know enter a search term and narrow your query Narrow all the data that's coming into the Tableau into the visualization Into the analytics based on what you're doing with with search terms that Mark logic can handle that Some of the under other underlying data stores can't so we really looked at and and this capability is in Is in the connector the ability to expose more of that power through Tableau to our joint customers Yeah, and from your perspective again, I'm curious So when you when you look at the partners out there, you've got You know some some of the names you might expect but then you've also got this emerging so-called big data space You've got no sequel players like Mark logic. You've got some of the Hadoop players down there as well What role does that play? Do you do you approach some of these newer? approaches to data management database Any different than you do some of your relational database customers? Is there a pattern maybe with customers and how they're using the product differently? Yeah, I think there are a couple of things there Jeff so you know one of the most compelling things about Mark logic for me is You know one of the biggest areas in big data is 80% of the world's data is unstructured and how do you get to that? You can structure it and put it in databases and that's a method that's worked for years and years But doesn't have the agility and speed that you need So I love Mark logic's ability to index that data where it sits as it sits how it sits And so you can consume it naturally and we like this conversation with data and Textual data is an important part of that But it doesn't necessarily come down to just that if you look at the Hadoop infrastructure We integrate with all the major Hadoop flavors and they're great partners for us But if you want Speed there you can index it in Hadoop Mark logic and do that we can index relational sources that are not indexed for the need That that you want So I love the schemalist approach from that perspective But getting to that unstructured content I think is the single biggest reason why it's important for customers It's it's the growing demand and you know You can't always hire an army of people to structure it to make it go right And are you seeing a lot of demand from customers that that are looking to tap into some of these new data sources? Yeah, we're seeing more and more. I mean, I think it's Early in the system and you know when when you say no sequel to the average business user They don't know what that means And so, you know turning it into you've got doctors notes that are handwritten or written in the system or clams notes and Turning it into those use cases. I think are the way that it'll become more and more consumable over time Yeah, when you talk to a business person if you talk about Hadoop no sequel spark Shark all the other you know, they don't know what it is and they really shouldn't they want to solve a business problem And that's what those technologies enable But they we start putting it in the context of well doctors know and written you want to aggregate that you want to do some Analysis then people kind of get it. Yeah, and you think about even email, right? You could easily query email to do the two line or the date or the subject line But what about the body of the email? That's where all the meat of the conversation is right Someone may be good at doing a subject or not. Yeah, and you know some people don't know how to use CC in an email So you don't know that you it's an FYI or to you? Yeah, so, you know being able to get to the context of it It is an extremely important. Yeah, absolutely. I Want to talk to you a little bit about some of your other partners as well so from a We had done interworks earlier and some of the partners that are kind of building up around table specifically Adding some of the enterprise grade capabilities That maybe tablet lacks hasn't developed yet Although you're taking a lot of strides there as well in terms of the enterprise server Offering, how do you look at that marketplace? Is there is there any conflict there? Is there with with some of the capabilities that they're offering not necessarily into work specifically? But yeah that consultancy the professional services arms that are building up around Tableau and how do you manage that relationship? Well, it's absolutely a fundamental part of what we do So we have four pillars of our channel We have a reselling type pillar a consulting Alliance pillar a technology pillar and an OEM pillar And one of our big strategies is a triangulation between them So great product companies together help customers to be successful But the implementers of that technology are critical so interworks and slalom and E&Y and Deloitte and Accenture and these types of partners are fundamental to being successful And really success that a customer happens at the implementation level It doesn't happen because you sold them a piece of software Right and so our great products are made better by great partners that do that And I think when you look even within technology partners Integration partners with database partners, right they make sense The social providers with that the data providers So our strategy there is to really triangulate and make sure that we've got people that are best in breed of what they do Whether it's implementing or building other products working together in a great collaborative way to make a customer successful So let's talk about this show a little bit You know the vibe here is great as it was last year a lot bigger show what 5,500 people now Versus I think 3,200 or so last year You got a big grin on your face I know you guys clearly enjoy this you threw a great party last night at the Space Needle, which was fun Closing the the stock market yesterday here up in Seventh and Pike obviously things seem to be going pretty well for Tableau And why is the event itself important for the company? Well, I mean we're first and foremost a product and customer company And so this is a celebration of our customers but also product and capability and Empowerment of people and so for me, it's it's just a it's a fun experience. It's tiring. There's no doubt Hydrate up. Yeah, but at the end of the day It's it's it's just a great event because we see the passion of our customers and Making them successful and and making people's every day Instead of having a job you have a career and you have a work life that you love Is really a huge part of what's different about Tableau customers and Tableau in general? And you know, I love to see it. It's fun to be around it. It's contagious Indeed so a lot of fun and and Joe from your perspective. What does Mark logic get from the show? Is it you know, obviously the energy of the customers? But what's what's really your take on the show and and and you know your your take on on this customer base and how you're able to Interact with these these customers. I think more than anything else what I've seen is people who are hungry to find ways of Using Tableau technology and other technologies to as I was saying before to kind of get more out of their data There's there's a real hunger for that And a real a real desire to to be able to capitalize on this I think people are looking around and they're seeing what other people are doing and they're going I Didn't realize that was an option, right? I didn't know we could do that and so it's it's really eye-opening I think and that that I think kind of Increases the you know the energy level and enthusiasm and we're getting lots of people coming by and and Asking us about how to use the products together You know what they can do with them and it's just that sort of curiosity interest level and desire to To want to figure out how to how to get something more out of their data So we've got time just for one more question. So we talked a little bit about earlier kind of your future plans But I mean I guess longer term Where do you see this? It's like a dating site. What do you see this relationship go? What I mean, what are some of the what is what's in the works that you can share with us? and From a strategic perspective how important is this relationship to mark law? well, it's very important to us and I think when we when I look at it from kind of a longer term perspective It's really about how do we how do we do more and more and expose more and more of the underlying power and Capability through them through the tableau tool So how do we let tableau users get to more and more of the power of their data? They can do a tremendous amount today But as I was saying I kind of view this as the beginning of the journey And I think there's there's a whole spectrum of things that we could look at and and and say yes These are things people would like to do There are areas that we could go together to make actually both of our products more powerful From your perspective well, and from my perspective perspective, it's more unleashing You know the unstructured content on the world and getting people going and We're working on some cool things with their by-temperal feature and some really exciting things that I think are going to resonate with Customers and and help them make better data Driven decisions, that's what it's all about in the end right? Yeah, absolutely Great well guys. Thanks so much for coming and joining us on the cube really appreciate it It is it is exhausting here after a few days right lots of fun though So again, thanks guys appreciate it. Thanks for having us. Thanks for watching We'll be right back live here from Seattle Washington at the Tableau conference right after this quick break