Welcome Windows Azure DataMarket

Ellie Fields

Today Microsoft launched the Windows Azure Marketplace DataMarket at its Partner Development Conference. We've been a partner to this product team (formerly named "Codename Dallas") and we are proud to congratulate Microsoft on this milestone.

Even today, finding, buying and downloading data can be a chore. It sits with different content providers on different websites in different formats. It can be hard to manage all the subscriptions and terms of use for paid datasets. The Windows Azure Marketplace DataMarket aims to make getting data much easier.

There are several points of integration between the DataMarket and Tableau:

  1. Tableau customers who subscribe to DataMarket data sets will be able to use OData to import the data right into Tableau Desktop and begin visualizing.
  2. Customers who click to certain content sets will see a live viz as a preview of that data. For example, Here's crime data from Data.gov:
  3. Every customer who subscribes to a Dallas data set will see Tableau as an options to explore it.

We think this will be a big time-saver for customers to access a one-stop shop to find, buy and download data. Many of the datasets are also free for use in mashing up with other data or visualizing on their own. Just in time for the new data blending feature in Tableau 6!

So welcome, Windows Azure DataMarket. We're happy to be part of the launch and hope for continued progress in making data easier to find and use.