In the Pipeline: taBLING

When a company grows as fast as Tableau, sometimes the unexpected happens. This is one of those times.

Recently we were alerted to the fact that video of a confidential Tableau product marketing meeting was uploaded to YouTube. We’ve never had a leak like this before—and we took some time to decide the most “Tableau” way of handling it.

Some companies might scramble to take down the video. But we don’t have anything to hide. On the contrary, we’re beyond proud of our incredible R&D department’s bold vision.

So, while this isn’t exactly how we wanted to make this announcement, we are thrilled to announce that Tableau is getting into the wearables market. Watch the leaked video below:

Our new line—taBLING—is going to knock the socks off of the wearables market. (Note to self: Email R&D about potential data viz socks—if any team could make them happen, it’s this one.)

Yes, we’ll have watches. Of course. Everyone is doing watches. But like usual, we're going beyond the expected—and inventing ways to make our customers' lives better.

We’ll start going better—and bigger—by going small. Wearable data viz rings that are as beautiful as they are eye-catching.

Your personal fitness data, at your fingertips near your knuckles every day.

(N.B.: Our legal team has asked us to tell you that the name mentioned in the video—the Best Fit Bit—was just a working title and in no way an attempt to infringe upon any other company’s intellectual property.)

As mentioned in the video, we are in talks with a home shopping channel for distribution. We can’t confirm a particular channel right now, but we CAN say that these rings are unique! Maybe even DIAMONIQUE?

And in the classic words of Ron Popeil: But wait, there's more!

Those of you who have been following Tableau Public know that sports analytics is one of the hottest areas out there in data journalism. But there’s one professional sport that has really been underserved by the data visualization world. And it just happens to dovetail with a geographical region that we’ve been trying to expand.

So, what do you get when you put professional rodeo together with next-generation data visualization wearables?

You get a taBLUCKLE!

The taBLUCKLE will be wireless, impact-, dust- and bull-slobber resistant. When connected to wireless, it will refresh every 8 seconds.

We’re confident the taBLUCKLE will soon be every rodeo fan’s way of showing off their favorite competitors’—or their own!—calf-ropin’, bronc-ridin’, barrel-racin’ stats.

And finally, we’re in the very early stages of talking with partners on this—but we’re committed to bringing 3-D virtual reality to data visualization—while you’re out in your environment. Anywhere you go, there’s your data in eye-popping 3-D realness.

The 'Bleau PRO

*Artist's conceptualization; product design not final

I won't candy-coat it; this one is going to be hard. The size of this project is, frankly, enormous. Every decision—from the right protective casing down to the diameter of the knob—is being considered carefully.

But we're confident that this story will have a happy ending. Stay tuned.