Tableau And The Art Of Thinking Differently

After many years of writing Crystal Reports, SSRS and Jaspersoft Reports, I first ran into Tableau. I struggled to create spreadsheet-looking documents for a while and then relaxed into what the product is really for: Analytics.
Instead of trying to decide what I wanted in a SQL query and then deciding how to group the rows and which columns I needed, I just started dragging stuff around. I started getting strange results, and then I started seeing crazy charts, and finally started getting results I liked but wasn't really after. I'm still on the journey, but one thing is for sure. I can give this product to a user with some data and they will come up with impressive results. My thinking now is that you are better off with no idea of what you want to create. Better to think, how are sales? How am I doing with inventory? Are we better off than the last few years? Then start dragging the fields onto the page. Not all of it is intuitive, but TableauSoftware.com website offers a lot of free training.
Now they have a Mac version...it is great, not 100% of the PC version..but very close. Tableau seems to have brought the sizzle AND the steak with this product..

Keep your eyes on these guys...