Hey all, as a potential competitor of Looker, I'm not sure how I should feel about this news. :) Here are some of the facts:
1. When Google acquired Alooma, they slowed down the development and dropped the support for other destinations such as Redshift and Hive. Even though Alooma is a data pipeline tool which makes it similar to Looker's case, the deal was $150M (compared to $2.6B) so I'm not sure the comparison makes sense.
2. Looker's sale team is so aggressive and their support team is great. In fact, that's why Looker became so big in the last few years. Google is not famous in terms of support.
3. Google is serious on BigQuery and I'm almost sure it will make Looker part of the Google Cloud. Since most of Looker customers are enterprise companies, Google will probably chase them to switch to BigQuery. On the other hand, Google has tons of BI tools (Data Studio, BigQuery BI Engine, etc.) so I'm not sure if Google makes Looker part of their analytics stack.
Don't worry about it. It's undoubtedly an aquihire. If there is one thing that Google demonstrates consistently is a complete disregard for relationships with external parties. This product will die once Google stops communicating with external companies. This is your opportunity to reassure your partners you're not going away and to reach out to Looker's companies to see if you can help stay in-front of this. Just don't be a dick about it: "Hey, just saying that Google is known for letting products die. If you're concerned about this, we'd love to know how to help you with those concerns."
Honestly I wouldn't worry about it, if anything Google Cloud just raised the profile of every BI product out there.
I work very closely with the Google Cloud team as a technology partner. With the recent hire of Thomas Kurian he has to make a big splash at Google while good will is forthcoming and I expect he will continue to authorize significant acquisitions to help build out their cloud to compete with Azure/AWS. The next piece of the puzzle will be an integration platform to help bring it all together.
I've found something like a LookML syntax backed by SQLAlchemy Core has allowed me to implement something like Looker (but tied to my own visualization stack)
> When Google acquired Alooma, they slowed down the development and dropped the support for other destinations such as Redshift and Hive.
Do you have a source for that? As far as I can see on their website [1] they still support it
> Looker's sale team is so aggressive and their support team is great. In fact, that's why Looker became so big in the last few years. Google is not famous in terms of support.
That's probably the major reason of the acquisition.
I'm a huge fan of Looker, but I'm not sure how I feel about this news. The best parts of Looker:
- It connects directly to your existing data warehouse. Most BI tools suck in your data into their datastore; Looker queries your database directly. If you wanted Looker to cache results for performance reasons, you could set up a dedicated schema in Redshift for example and only give write privileges to that one schema. But even the cached dataset was stored directly in your data warehouse.
- It is platform agnostic.
- LookML is backed by Git. By default, changes to your LookML definitions are pushed to a Looker-owned Github repo, but you can change this so that the repo is under your control as well.
- The support is pretty phenomenal.
There's that unsettled part in me that's wondering the over/under on two years before we get the next announcement: to give you better performance, it's tightly integrated with BigQuery; LookML is getting long in the tooth so we've gone ahead and created the views you'll need which are now accessible via the Google Analytics interface; you can go ahead and forward your concerns to /dev/null.
I've used Looker before and am mostly a fan. Contrary to many of the comments here, its not precisely a 'kiddie' tool for people that don't want to learn SQL; its more like a ORM/DSL for BI queries. I'd probably be using it in my current gig, but the licensing model doesn't really work for small operations.
Google Cloud has an actually great track record of acquiring data-centric companies and democratizing them. While Data Studio is pretty amazing for a free tool, it has many shortcomings for serious use, and Looker fills all those holes nicely, while also providing the ability to formalize processes around data. Instead of mousing around Data Studio, Looker allows for all of its resources to be defined in its YAMLish syntax and maintained in source control.
I'm curious to see how Google handle acquiring a company which requires some fairly high touch sales. Looker is a fantastic tool, but its not something which is useful from day one, and at least currently has a high enough price tag attached to it that they involve a lot of sales engineering in getting new customers to a point where they're able to query data they care about.
I would interpret this as a sign that Thomas Kurian is trying to "enterprisify" Google Cloud by acquiring companies with high-touch enterprise sales cultures. Which runs against Google's traditional stance but is also credited as one of the reason Google Cloud has struggled to sell into big companies so far.
> Looker is a fantastic tool, but its not something which is useful from day one, and at least currently has a high enough price tag attached to it that they involve a lot of sales engineering in getting new customers to a point where they're able to query data they care about.
That describes most enterprise software, so it's not a unique challenge.
Me and My team have been working on a Looker alternative for a couple of years. Hope this is the right time to give a pitch. We as a company love to assist our clients with a free consultation in understanding their data better. This will take you to the direct demo: https://demo.katoai.co/[email protected]&password=k...
I can talk a lot about it if anyone is interested.
I'm curious what this means for folks that opted to use Looker for their embedded analytics and if that's something Google is interested in supporting over the long-term?
I'm also wondering how this affects pricing over the long-term and whether this becomes a replacement for Data Studio / commoditized analytics platform to make GCP more compelling?
Would it be in Google's interest to offer this for free (or at least with very little up front cost) in the interest of competing with AWS?
As a sidenote, Looker is a great platform. I evaluated 8 BI platforms late last year, and it really stood out (LookML, Git integration, awesome charting widgets, customization, etc).
Very worried on the embedded side, we spent a full year migrating off of sisense embedded onto Looker embedded and literally launched two days ago. Embedded on any BI platform already seems like a red-headed stepchild with a little love, but not too much, being put into it in fits and starts. It could be so useful to so many companies, but the platform costs puts it outside most of their reach, so it ends up just hanging out. The thought of moving again makes me ill, not just for the herculean dev effort, but the fact that Looker really does have one of the only really useful embedded offerings. No other BI tool could compare.
Before you downvote me, these are not mine words but actually from a Looker engineer I asked to summarize the product. I don't know how accurate the quote is, but it stuck with me.
Also, congrats to the team I guess. Is an acquisition an accomplishment or just a decision?
I can confirm that. I spent some time looking at it when the entire sales team at the SaaS startup I was at insisted on it. I'll admit, I have yet to see a BI tool that was this easy. I tried selling them first on a self-hosted instance of Apache Caravel, but it turns out ANY SQL is too much.
Looker is a pretty interesting tool that essentially solves the SQL manageability problem. SQL is really hard to reuse but LookML data models are easily reused (and are versioned in git which is really nice since Business Analysts typically aren't familiar with version control). Integrating LookML-style data modeling into BigQuery could be interesting...
As someone on the BQ -> Looker Stack, I'm very very happy about this news. I also think their going to not have pricing pressure for a while as Google may want them to keep taking market share away from Tableau, Qlik, etc.
Smart move. Google wants to own the entire data infrastructure. Alooma (acquired in February) gets your data from various sources into BigQuery, then all the analysis is done in Looker.
Unfortunate news for non-Looker users: Supposedly Alooma stopped supporting Redshift and Snowflake integrations following the acquisition, since those compete with BigQuery. If you're using Looker with Redshift or Snowflake you should be concerned.
Edit: By “stopped supporting” I meant they deprioritized it from the roadmap. I do not mean that they disabled the integration.
Data Studio actually isn't part of GCP at all, it's part of GMP (with Analytics & DV360/DoubleClick). There are integrations between the two, but my guess is that Data Studio continues to exist in GMP and fills the role of dashboards for marketers, while Looker will fulfill the BI role.
Before this acquisition:
Looker > Tableau > QlikView > Superset (now preset.io)
After this acquisition:
Superset (now preset.io) > Looker > Tableau > QlikView
Now that Looker is owned by a corporation, the innovation is going to diminish. The creative forces will cash out and move on. I think Superset is going to fill the void that these BI corporations leave behind.
below my view on this acquisition.
I think Google is making a good move to break into Enterprise market. After Thomas Kurian joined Google (He is from Oracle), he said that Google will become a leading vendor for Enterprise IT solution and serve the largest enterprise clients in the world. He aims to compete with IBM, SAP and Oracle (Microsoft is is not the best player in this field.) Case in point, Google announce Anthos this year, which aims specifically to serve large enterprise.
Looker is one of the best upcoming BI platforms in the market. I like Looker. I even took Looker Certificate exam 3 years ago because I think Looker consultant will be valuable in the future. I would’ve already joined Looker to get their shares if they have office in Vancouver. :slightly_smiling_face:
LookML is a killer feature that solves a critical pain point in Enterprise BI and set Looker apart from the competitors, like Tableau and Periscope. This feature is no value to small startups and small company, but great feature for mid-size company, and critical to Large enterprise BI. Looker has a great potential to become the next leading Large Enterprise BI that successes Oracle OBIEE, MS PowerBI and SAP Business Object.
I think if Google is to take Looker and make it the next Enterprise BI and use it to get in the door of large Enterprise Customers, They are making a right strategy move. Google will bring a superior BI solution to its top-tier enterprise customers than IBM, Oracle, SAP. It plays well with Google’s strength in data offering, and BI the easier segment for Google to break through comparing to ERP, CRM and other enterprise solution segments.
If Google just wants part of Looker and absorb into the Google Machine, they are paying too high a price tag for it. (I don’t think that’s what Google are doing). I don’t think Google is buying it to eliminate competitor either, Google doesn’t have any products that offer similar features or target same market as Looker
[+] [-] buremba|6 years ago|reply
1. When Google acquired Alooma, they slowed down the development and dropped the support for other destinations such as Redshift and Hive. Even though Alooma is a data pipeline tool which makes it similar to Looker's case, the deal was $150M (compared to $2.6B) so I'm not sure the comparison makes sense.
2. Looker's sale team is so aggressive and their support team is great. In fact, that's why Looker became so big in the last few years. Google is not famous in terms of support.
3. Google is serious on BigQuery and I'm almost sure it will make Looker part of the Google Cloud. Since most of Looker customers are enterprise companies, Google will probably chase them to switch to BigQuery. On the other hand, Google has tons of BI tools (Data Studio, BigQuery BI Engine, etc.) so I'm not sure if Google makes Looker part of their analytics stack.
P.S: We're big fans of the LookML and we have developed a LookML alternative based on Jsonnet (https://jsonnet.org/) and the great data pipeline tool DBT. (https://github.com/fishtown-analytics/dbt). Here is how it looks like: https://github.com/rakam-io/segment-recipe/blob/master/event...
[+] [-] cdumler|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 1290cc|6 years ago|reply
I work very closely with the Google Cloud team as a technology partner. With the recent hire of Thomas Kurian he has to make a big splash at Google while good will is forthcoming and I expect he will continue to authorize significant acquisitions to help build out their cloud to compete with Azure/AWS. The next piece of the puzzle will be an integration platform to help bring it all together.
[+] [-] sytse|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tmountain|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] infinite8s|6 years ago|reply
I've found something like a LookML syntax backed by SQLAlchemy Core has allowed me to implement something like Looker (but tied to my own visualization stack)
[+] [-] bob_roboto|6 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.alooma.com/integrations/to/redshift
[+] [-] ewrcoffee|6 years ago|reply
That's probably the major reason of the acquisition.
[+] [-] mirceal|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sturgill|6 years ago|reply
- It connects directly to your existing data warehouse. Most BI tools suck in your data into their datastore; Looker queries your database directly. If you wanted Looker to cache results for performance reasons, you could set up a dedicated schema in Redshift for example and only give write privileges to that one schema. But even the cached dataset was stored directly in your data warehouse.
- It is platform agnostic.
- LookML is backed by Git. By default, changes to your LookML definitions are pushed to a Looker-owned Github repo, but you can change this so that the repo is under your control as well.
- The support is pretty phenomenal.
There's that unsettled part in me that's wondering the over/under on two years before we get the next announcement: to give you better performance, it's tightly integrated with BigQuery; LookML is getting long in the tooth so we've gone ahead and created the views you'll need which are now accessible via the Google Analytics interface; you can go ahead and forward your concerns to /dev/null.
[+] [-] reilly3000|6 years ago|reply
Google Cloud has an actually great track record of acquiring data-centric companies and democratizing them. While Data Studio is pretty amazing for a free tool, it has many shortcomings for serious use, and Looker fills all those holes nicely, while also providing the ability to formalize processes around data. Instead of mousing around Data Studio, Looker allows for all of its resources to be defined in its YAMLish syntax and maintained in source control.
[+] [-] jon-wood|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chkuendig|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gk1|6 years ago|reply
That describes most enterprise software, so it's not a unique challenge.
[+] [-] victor106|6 years ago|reply
They don’t have a price on their website. Can anyone here provide what price points a medium-large company is looking(no pun intended) at?
[+] [-] tyingq|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mathattack|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Achshar|6 years ago|reply
I can talk a lot about it if anyone is interested.
[+] [-] sytse|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nixgeek|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] systemBuilder|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ddon|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tmountain|6 years ago|reply
I'm also wondering how this affects pricing over the long-term and whether this becomes a replacement for Data Studio / commoditized analytics platform to make GCP more compelling?
Would it be in Google's interest to offer this for free (or at least with very little up front cost) in the interest of competing with AWS?
As a sidenote, Looker is a great platform. I evaluated 8 BI platforms late last year, and it really stood out (LookML, Git integration, awesome charting widgets, customization, etc).
[+] [-] sv123|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fhoffa|6 years ago|reply
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gYUGv_omJA
[+] [-] chirau|6 years ago|reply
Before you downvote me, these are not mine words but actually from a Looker engineer I asked to summarize the product. I don't know how accurate the quote is, but it stuck with me.
Also, congrats to the team I guess. Is an acquisition an accomplishment or just a decision?
[+] [-] mountainofdeath|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Scarbutt|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rockostrich|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] siliconc0w|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] royalharsh95|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asmodeous789|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 9diov|6 years ago|reply
- Its use of LookML provides a steep learning curve, yet provides a maintainable and reusable data modeling
- Looker's drill-down ability is decently powerful and easy to use once you are familiar with LookML.
- Looker does not have its own storage layer but instead relies on customer's data warehouses
- Looker, in essence, is a SQL query builder engine that converts business users' drag-and-drop inputs into SQL queries.
- Looker provides highly flexible and sophisticated access control and permission management, sacrificing simplicity for power.
- Looker has limited data preparation capabilities compared to other tools, delegating this task to its partners to provide these capabilities.
[+] [-] gk1|6 years ago|reply
Unfortunate news for non-Looker users: Supposedly Alooma stopped supporting Redshift and Snowflake integrations following the acquisition, since those compete with BigQuery. If you're using Looker with Redshift or Snowflake you should be concerned.
Edit: By “stopped supporting” I meant they deprioritized it from the roadmap. I do not mean that they disabled the integration.
[+] [-] v7p1Qbt1im|6 years ago|reply
https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/data-analytics/announ...
[+] [-] nofinator|6 years ago|reply
Maybe you're personally noticing a difference in the amount of support before and after the acquisition?
[+] [-] amelius|6 years ago|reply
Not just the infrastructure. They want the data too!
[+] [-] philshem|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lmkg|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tuke|6 years ago|reply
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H...
[+] [-] kwillets|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] outside1234|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrowley|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rcpt|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rohit6223|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xibalba|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iblaine|6 years ago|reply
After this acquisition: Superset (now preset.io) > Looker > Tableau > QlikView
Now that Looker is owned by a corporation, the innovation is going to diminish. The creative forces will cash out and move on. I think Superset is going to fill the void that these BI corporations leave behind.
[+] [-] streblo|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hui-zheng|6 years ago|reply
Looker is one of the best upcoming BI platforms in the market. I like Looker. I even took Looker Certificate exam 3 years ago because I think Looker consultant will be valuable in the future. I would’ve already joined Looker to get their shares if they have office in Vancouver. :slightly_smiling_face:
LookML is a killer feature that solves a critical pain point in Enterprise BI and set Looker apart from the competitors, like Tableau and Periscope. This feature is no value to small startups and small company, but great feature for mid-size company, and critical to Large enterprise BI. Looker has a great potential to become the next leading Large Enterprise BI that successes Oracle OBIEE, MS PowerBI and SAP Business Object.
I think if Google is to take Looker and make it the next Enterprise BI and use it to get in the door of large Enterprise Customers, They are making a right strategy move. Google will bring a superior BI solution to its top-tier enterprise customers than IBM, Oracle, SAP. It plays well with Google’s strength in data offering, and BI the easier segment for Google to break through comparing to ERP, CRM and other enterprise solution segments.
If Google just wants part of Looker and absorb into the Google Machine, they are paying too high a price tag for it. (I don’t think that’s what Google are doing). I don’t think Google is buying it to eliminate competitor either, Google doesn’t have any products that offer similar features or target same market as Looker