We often ask whether competition can offer a better or cheaper solution than a company we love. But the answer is always: it’s possible.
I think a better question is: Why do a company’s customers choose it?
Remember what Frank posted in his review of AYX’s recent presentation (https://boards.fool.com/notes-alteryx-at-needham-conference-…
Dean then discussed that companies want a self serve data analytics platform that will be used by both their data analysts (50 million total) and their data scientists (2 million total). The data scientist will be able to create specific customer needed solutions on the Alteryx platform that can be used by their data analysts. The convergence of both the data scientist and the data analyst is very important for the customer and is a big draw for Alteryx.
Alteryx realizes it does not have complete domain expertise for every segment of the customer base. So its customers in specific verticals are helping create solutions that are helping each vertical through digital transformation.
In other words, Alteryx is giving their customers what they want, and the customers like it so much, they’re helping each other – kind of an Alteryx network of customer-collaborators.
I appreciate the “hardcore” data scientists weighing in here, but I see really no comparison between Python or R to Alteryx. AFAIK, the main Alteryx use case is, instead of doing something in Excel once, set it up in Alteryx, and then it’s done forever. When the input data changes/updates, instead of having to re-build your Excel report, Alteryx pulls everything in automatically. That’s not a use case for the “hardcore” data scientist (I mean heck they could acheive that even just using SQL), so I can see why it’s not very interesting to them. But to the rest of us, it’s a game changer.
Probably the “hardcore” data scientists who use Alteryx are just doing so to collaborate with their more plebeian coworkers. If Alteryx can dabble with machine learning use cases (or whatever…I’m not a techie), that’s all green field.
The main thing is that customers want a solution everybody can use. The more it can be compatible with other things a subset of employees want to use, the better.
That’s how I see it.
Bear