Elissa Fink

Lately, the Dallas Cowboys story has generated a lot of news and activity.

We've seen news coverage in ComputerWorld magazine, a featured story on network television in Dallas, a video case study on TechTarget and even in our own case study with our partner Teknion.

We've had a string of good news over the last several weeks - from being on the Inc. 500 list to the ComputerWorld article about the Dallas Cowboys. And now, we've just learned we ranked 132 on Deloitte's annual list of the Technology Fast 500.

Each year, Deloitte releases its 2009 Technology Fast 500 list. Established 12 years ago, the rankings are based on percentage fiscal year revenue growth over a five year period and include both public and private companies. In order to be eligible, a company must own proprietary intellectual property or proprietary technology that contributes to a significant portion of the company's operating revenues.

As with our Inc. 500 listing, Tableau's success is attributable to our customers. We never forget that the first thing is always that they have to successful with Tableau; only then can we be successful. So once again, our deep thanks and appreciation go out to our customers. On behalf of everyone at Tableau, thank you for working with us building great products that you love to use and continually pushing us to innovate and improve.

Teradata Corporation recently recognized Tableau as its "New Partner" of the year. Announced at its annual Partners conference this last week in Washington, DC, it's quite an honor especially coming from Teradata. Teradata (NYSE: TDC) is the world’s largest company solely focused on raising intelligence through data warehousing, data warehouse appliances, consulting services and enterprise analytics. Teradata is in more than 60 countries. We introduced Tableau connectivity to Tableau last year and we're happy to say that it's having a very strong market impact.

Dallas Cowboys Merchandising COO Bill Priakos is quite a guy. Starting with his background in big-time retail and now after 13 years with the Cowboys, he's built one of the world's most preeminent sports merchandising machines. And you know what? He also doesn't take any "cowpie" from anyone (I think that's the nice way of saying it in Texas).

So when Eric Lai of ComputerWorld recently decided to tell the story of how the Cowboys use Tableau as the business intelligence software against 4 separate operational systems, it makes for compelling reading.

As easy as Tableau is to learn (just by getting started, attending a web-based course, or watching a video), sometimes there's just no substitute for good old-fashioned in-person training. Getting out of the office and away from the distractions of daily life does wonders for a learning environment.

That's why I'm happy to share information about training courses from our new training partner, Freakalytics. Scheduled courses include:

• Sep 15-17, 2009 – Seattle, Washington
• Oct 06-08, 2009 – New York City, NY
• Oct 20-22, 2009 – Washington, DC (Alexandria, VA)
• Nov 10-12, 2009 – Dallas, Texas

Every once in awhile, we get a flurry of activity from journalists and bloggers talking about Tableau. We like sharing these with you because you're the reason we get the attention in the first place.

CBSSports.com wants to make one of the most critical decisions in drafting a fantasy football team easier: choosing a running back. Today, in time for Draft Day, they posted the "Interactive RB selector" - a Tableau viz that lets anyone find and make inspired RB choices.

We're honored that Inc. magazine has ranked Tableau as one of the nation's 500 fastest growing companies in its annual "Inc. 500" list. We have only our customers to thank.

Thanks to them, we at Tableau...

• Saw our revenue grow by over 600% from 2005 to 2008.
• Are the only data visualization or business intelligence software provider to be named this year.
• Build products that people love, based on insight and feedback from from our customers and partners.

You’ve no doubt heard the news – IBM is buying SPSS for $1.2 billion. Industry pundits say IBM is rounding out its “Information On Demand” (IOD) portfolio. Meanwhile, did you read that IBM also announced an initiative called “Smart Analytics” Systems? This new series of BI (business intelligence) products combines software, hardware, storage and professional services.

But I have to wonder if these moves by IBM aren’t just attempts to glom together a bunch of software, hardware and services into some strategic vision that in practice turns out to be hard-to-use and holds virtually no advantage for customers.