TIBCO Enhances its Visualization Tool with Spotfire X

TIBCO will soon release a new version of its Spotfire platform with Spotfire X. This version is expected to make things easier and improve integration with other tools, particularly with new TIBCO products.

When was Spotfire X announced?

TIBCO introduced Spotfire X (pronounced “Spotfire 10”) at its Las Vegas conference in September 2018. This latest edition will replace the current Spotfire 7.14, released in August 2018. The long-term support Spotfire 7.11 version, released earlier this year, is expected to remain available in the foreseeable future.

What is Spotfire X?

Spotfire X strives to be the final interface to all the all the recently acquired TIBCO tools, including TIBCO Data Virtualization, TIBCO Statistica, TIBCO Spotfire Data Science (formerly Alpine), TIBCO Live Data Mart, and others. In addition to superior integration with these tools and the usual bug fixes and minor updates, there’s more to get excited about.

What’s new in Spotfire X?

1. Streaming Analytics

Although it was already possible to stream live data in Spotfire using Streambase, the functionality will now be built-in. TIBCO also claims to be able to connect to many sources of live data. Indeed, similar to what the data science functionality offers, it will be possible to connect to a streaming engine (e.g. TIBCO Live Data Mart) in order to get more advanced abilities and performance.

2. Automated Jobs

Again, not a new feature but an improvement to make things easier. The process to automate tasks will be much smoother as it will not be necessary to configure Windows Task Scheduler anymore.

3. Artificial Intelligence with A(X)

TIBCO Spotfire will take self-service analytics to a new level with A(X). This will allow what they call “automated analytics”, understanding that it will be easier than ever to create visuals without actually having to configure a visualization. Similar to what Tableau offers, this AI capability will likely be a great starting point to build your visuals, potentially providing ideas and saving time. A(X) will also include a natural query language function to create analytics just by typing words in a search bar, functionality seen in Power BI with Cortana.

4. Data Wrangling

Another great addition to Spotfire, which was already introduced in Version 7.14 but has been extended in Spotfire X. Through a workflow interface, it will be easy to see, add, remove, and edit any data transformation (e.g. add rows, add columns, unpivot data) performed in Spotfire. This way, it will be easy to see a transformation that someone else performed months ago and modify it, without having to reproduce all the following transformations in the data flow.

What should we expect from Spotfire X?

Overall, this new version may not be revolutionary but represents strong improvements, giving Spotfire solid foundations to apprehend the future of data analytics. We can expect Spotfire X to be released in either December 2018 or the beginning of 2019.