Big Data is not just for 'high-end' data scientists

BUSINESS intelligence software provider Tableau may be riding the Big Data wave, but its start was initially an uphill journey. Chief scientist and co-founder Pat Hanrahan recounts that the desire to help non-technical users visualise and understand their data was considered a bad idea then.

"It was considered a bad idea as we would be competing with Microsoft. People were happy with Excel. Everyone was telling us we should go after the very sophisticated users," said Mr Hanrahan, who started his career in computer graphics and previously worked at Pixar.

He added: "We had read a report that more people use Excel to process data than for financial calculation. But Excel was never designed for that. Add to that the data was going to be more and more important to businesses and everyone would have to be manipulating it. It just seemed obvious that we could do something that would address that market."