# Tableau's Future - is it falling behind? Season 5 Episode 4 | Datum Podcast

> This is content from just-tim, the data-and-analytics channel by Tim Ngwena (formerly 'Tableau Tim'). Tim has 12+ years of hands-on BI experience and covers Tableau most of all, plus Power BI, Looker, Hex, SQL and data modelling, the analytics industry, and the craft of doing the job — always tool-agnostic and honest about the trade-offs.

- **Author:** Tim Ngwena (just-tim, https://just-tim.com/about)
- **Published:** 2024-08-09
- **Format:** Video · 72 min watch · transcript available
- **Topics:** Industry trends, Tool strategy, Data visualisation
- **Tools:** Power BI; Tableau (ai, prep, public, pulse, web authoring)
- **Canonical:** https://just-tim.com/posts/tableau-s-future---is-it-falling-behind-season-5-episode-4-datum-podcast
- **Watch:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGQFe0X2KmA

In this Datum Podcast episode, Ravi and I tackle the community narrative that Tableau is dying or falling behind Power BI. We break the question down topic by topic — price, core capability, innovation, the Salesforce-driven fourth wave, and the job market — and give our honest verdict on each, ending up cautiously optimistic that Tableau is evolving rather than declining.

## Key takeaways

- Tableau's premium price reflects the whole platform (Desktop, Prep, an online instance) and a genuinely superior visual analysis experience, so the common 'just make it cheaper' argument rarely holds up versus 'Power BI is actually better for my workflow'.
- The definition of an analyst's core work is shifting away from building pixel-perfect dashboards towards synthesising and curating insight — and Tableau's strength in fast, iterative visual discovery matters more than crafted dashboard design.
- 'Stated beliefs versus revealed preferences' explains the market: users say they want deep chart customisation but actually just want answers built quickly, which is why AI-generated answers and tools like Tableau Pulse are gaining ground.
- The fourth wave (Salesforce's reimagining shown at conference) will likely create a dividing line between a 'legacy' Tableau Desktop experience and a new web-authoring, AI-led flow — and probably won't ship until well into next year.
- If you find current releases like 24.2 half-baked, joining the pre-release beta cycle is the most productive way to get your feedback valued rather than complaining publicly.

## Chapters

- 0:00 What this episode covers
- 2:09 Catching up and editing tools
- 5:02 Setting the agenda: is Tableau dying?
- 7:46 Price versus Power BI
- 16:46 Core capability and how it changed
- 34:13 Innovation and feature telemetry
- 41:57 Salesforce influence and the fourth wave
- 55:46 Product quality and final thoughts

Watch the full video, read the transcript and use chapter deep-links on the page: https://just-tim.com/posts/tableau-s-future---is-it-falling-behind-season-5-episode-4-datum-podcast

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just-tim — Data and analytics, with a point of view. · https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7HYxRWmaNlJux-X7rNLZyw · https://twitter.com/TableauTim · https://www.linkedin.com/in/timngwena