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4/05/2014

Data Analytics, Datawatch versus Tableau : Best Stock? Best Application?



Datawatch (DWCH) has a market cap of 210.61 Million, Tableau (DATA) 4.33 Billion down from a stunning March 1st size of 6.103 Billion. 

Today (04/04/14) Datawatch published a bold informative transparent comparison between Datawatch and Tableau software. This short clip was front and center on the home page, Datawatch vs TableauAnyone who uses data to make decisions or discover new insights will benefit from watching , along with investors.

Tableau is a good company with a good product. I have no interest in bashing their product or the company. Yet data discovery, democracy and analysis is far more than who produces the prettiest graph.

The Datawatch story is quickly unfolding. A software solution created by merging two data analytic thought leaders, Datawatch (DWCH) and Panopticon. Two quarters ago by smartly using stock as currency Datawatch purchased Swedish data visualization software developer Panopticon. 2013 Panopticon received the first ever Gartner cool vendor award focused on in-memory computing. The result was creation of the only beginning to end self service BI driven by visual data discovery. Tableau (DATA), QlikTech (QLIK), Spotfire (TIBX) or Microstategy (MSTR) cannot offer such important thorough functionality without a complete architecture overhaul.

Each new DWCH post is motivated as the position of the company materially changed. My opinions formed from real world 15 years working, developing and managing business intelligence projects for several Fortune 500 companies. Yes I've used Tableau along with Qlikview and MicroStrategy. Qlikview and Tableau are good products with different strengths. Unfortunately they are far from complete in offering self service BI or as Tableau likes to say data democracy. I can say with certainty as a customer of Tableau, Qlikview, MicroStrategy and other BI related products what Datawatch is offering is a must have analytic tool. I agree with CEO Morrison Q4 comment. Datawatch has a "unique first class solution offering. That can compete with any other vendor in the space, now offering real-time against nearly any variety of data that is present in the organization. No competitor today can ever expect to win against us on these agendas without a complete architecture overhaul."
As a potential investor the following are worth noting, aggressive insider buying over the past 2 years with no sales, tiny float, significant investing opportunity with a proven solution now expanded with new technology to enter the fast growing big data or any data for visual discovery. 42.75% of Datawatch is held by insiders.Note that heavy insider selling is the norm for all other companies in this space. 

Historical reported results cant reveal the recent positive operational changes at Datawatch. As such, I expect financial results over the next 6 to 18 months to materially improve. Investors should expect a much higher stock price.

Tableau's usefulness is far less valuable without the only out-of-the- box, ready to go, everyman technology perfected over 20 years of continuous improvement for data mining unstructured or semi structured content existing in most any file source;web,xps,pdf,html,log,mdb,xls,txt,prn, and on and on. This software is from Datawatch formerly called Monarch now Modeler.Furthermore with the recent acquisition of Panopticon Datawatch now offers the only beginning to end tool for speed of thought data analysis, discovery,for any size data. Datawatch vs Tableau 

Tableau creates nice graphs with some data discovery functionality. But let's say that a marketing or operational expert needs to research,discover new knowledge and then present the findings by combining non relational data buried on several websites, external PDF files, invoices , ERP reports or an internal Access databases. You will get nowhere without Datawatch's ability to empower the functional expert ,consultant, staff or executive to quickly mash/relate then create new metrics from all this previously unrelated data. 



Additionally from my own hands on experience finding or discovery new opportunities is only possible with speed of thought functionality. Datawatch has that won with in memory speed over much slower Tableau. Additionally Datawatch offer real time and access to virtually any source structured or unstructured. Tableau does not. Datawatch has built in data discovery functions that must be scripted with Tableau.  


DWCH is not a traditional value stock. But it does present a unique high reward and high risk idea.Furthermore, relative industry value but far more importantly just entered the fast growing large market for big data, visualization with a tiny base a better product and industry solutions versus the other multibillion dollar peers, Tableau. Furthermore I believe an opportunity exists because the market does not understand/value Datawatch's recent changes and the impact to future opportunities hence creating a market discount.  

From an investing point of view market traction is inevitable over the next year. The possibility of attracting an acquisition from large software vendors is real. Datawatch is an inexpensive way to improve existing application offerings from a large software vendor or just gain access to the hottest sector in technology, data visualization. Datawatch has “first mover” advantage to analyze high volume of data in real-time any time or size. Furthermore, in-memory technology, access to static structured and unstructured sources, seasoned industry respected team now on board, current and future possibilities with machine data and predictive analytics. Splunk is working with Datawatch to offer their software visualization. There is so much more to say. 

Long DWCH


The following deep value nano cap ideas were discovered using Datawatch Desktop. Tableau is (for me) way too slow to do discovery and have speed of thought analysis. More importantly Datwatch provides access to other decision making sources, locked in semistructured and unstrucuted, HTM, PDF, TXT. Impossible with Tableau or the other BI tools like Qlikview. 
Nano cap deep value ideas, found using a combination of scatter plots, tables, tree maps all within Datawatch desktop. 




Sunday I will post my findings