A Wicked Smaht History of Spotfire

It’s an honor to lead the Spotfire team at TIBCO. Our work with healthcare, supply chain, and the pharmaceutical industry has kept us busy in 2020. But today is about the informative history of Spotfire.

Rock Gnatovich, former VP of Spotfire sales, reminisces about the startup days in Boston on the Tripping Over the Barrel podcast. Corporate HQ was in Boston, so it’s a “wicked smaht” (yes the spelling is correct!) trip down Spotfire Memory Lane.

Rock’s story reminds us of what the entrepreneurial journey takes. He describes the team’s sense of family. He recalls their obsession to find “the killer app” for Spotfire. He tells how they found it in the oil and gas market. He reminisces about how Spotfire’s brilliant founder Chris Ahlberg was always searching for value. Says Rock, “We didn’t know its value yet, but Spotfire was constantly blowing us away, finding cool insights. We knew we’d find it, eventually.”

Rock shares what it’s like to visit one of the best user interface innovation cities on the planet: Gothenburg, Sweden. And for Boston sports fans, you’ll enjoy Rock’s take on Bill Belichick and how he knows him.

He wraps up by describing how Murray Rode called Spotfire “the star of the show” after its acquisition by TIBCO. This blog picks it from there—subscribe to keep tabs on the future of Spotfire and more!

Grab a cup of coffee and listen to a great BI pioneering story on Tripping Over the Barrel. And press play on the video below, too, for a virtual walk-through of the Spotfire user experience, curated by Tobias Lehtipalo.

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