Some more on Tableau:
By Tiernan Ray
Following a report this evening by data visualization software maker Tableau Software (DATA) of Q4 revenue and profit that topped analysts’ expectations, the company’s management held a conference call in which they referred to “softness” in spending by some enterprise customers, and cut the firm’s outlook for revenue in 2016.
The report and forecast sent the shares careening in after-hours trading. The stock is presently down $40.32, or 49%, at $41.43, and was down more than 50%, briefly.
Shares of competitor Qlik Technologies (QLIK) are down $1.95, or 8%, at $22.98, in sympathy.
As I said earlier, on the call, management projected revenue this quarter of $160 million to $165 million, below consensus of $179.5 million. For 2016, it cut its forecast to a range of $830 to $850 million, down from a prior $845 million to $865 million, and below consensus for $871.5 million.
Tableau’s CFO, Tom Walker, referred to “softness” in spending:
Despite our strong metrics, we saw some softness in spending especially in North America. We did see our customers continue to expand their use of Tableau in the organizations but not at the same cadence we historically experienced [...] Based on what we see in the environment and the buying patterns of our customers we are taking a prudent stance as we begin the year. We expect seasonality to be amplified as our overall revenues continue to grow.
Walker was pressed on the matter by an analyst later in the call, during the Q&A. In response, he clarified:
Overall I think my comment in my prepared remarkswere about softness in spending we saw in our customer base. Then getting back to how I commented with Mark is part of our model allows people to expand at a pace that works for them. More caution in how they were spending and how they were allocating dollars. So that’s more of what I would call highlight to, that we just saw that. The beauty of our model is it allows people to expand in smaller increments if they want.With respect to overall competitive market if you look at the internal data that we collect our win rates are not changing at all actually. We are really the mass analytics Company bringing this technology to a lot of different people who don’t know. They’ve just got questions and they’ve got data.Overall win rates softness in overall spending. Last thing you asked about was about sales productivity. As you know we have been growing at a very fast pace over the last few years. You would expect productivity numbers to come down but there are things we have to do to tighten our approach. We are focusing on that. We’ve got the right sales leadership in place andreally looking forward to 2016 quite frankly. The technology is coming out. 10.0 is armed the corner.