Sigma Computing launches Data Apps to boost analytics
The vendor's new application development feature enables users to create custom apps that combine data collection, insight generation and process automation to improve analysis.
Sigma Computing this week launched Data Apps, no-code tools that enable customers to develop customized applications for business functions such as sales forecasting and financial planning.
Traditional data products such as dashboards and reports provide information for users to interpret and derive insights that lead to actions. Most, however, are static, must be updated manually to keep them current and are isolated within a BI environment requiring users to switch to other environments to take action.
Applications built using Data Apps, made available Thursday, combine data collection, insight generation and the ability to trigger actions. The main features of Data Apps include Sigma Computing's spreadsheet interface, automatic write-back to cloud data platforms to keep data current, no-code layout templates, and an actions framework for process automation and taking action.
Given that Data Apps can be customized to address specific business purposes, they can potentially be more valuable than traditional dashboards, according to Donald Farmer, founder and principal of TreeHive Strategy.
"One of the purposes of Data Apps is to provide more scenario-focused business analysis than a generic dashboard," he said. "This should make the applications simpler for a non-specialist business user to learn and to take advantage of."
Based in San Francisco, Sigma Computing is a cloud-based analytics vendor differentiated by a spreadsheet interface similar to Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets. However, unlike those spreadsheet platforms, Sigma Computing's interface is built on top of an engine that uses AI to enable deep data exploration.
New capabilities
Organizations often have a profusion of SaaS systems for data-related tasks. Connecting them can be complicated for engineers, building tools with them can be cumbersome for developers, and toggling between them can be a waste of time for analysts and other business users.
Data applications address many of those problems, according to Mike Leone, an analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, now part of Omdia. Critically, they enable users to take actions from within analytics workflows, which reduces the need for extraneous SaaS tools, speeds decision-making and improves governance and security.
"They turn BI from a passive reporting tool into an interactive, workflow-driven experience," he said.
Data Apps are Sigma Computing's attempt to simplify turning data into insights and actions, according to Stipo Josipovic, the vendor's director of product, who introduced Data Apps during a virtual conference held in conjunction with the launch.
The Data Apps features enable analysis with a familiar interface, reduce the need to develop complex pipelines to move data back and forth between Sigma Computing's environment, and cloud data storage platforms, simplify development with no-code capabilities and eliminate the need to toggle back and forth between systems to act on insights.
Given that Data Apps not only enable analysis but also actions such as approving budgets and triggering workflows, they are a significant addition for Sigma Computing customers, according to Leone.
The launch of Data Apps is a big deal for Sigma customers because it shifts the platform from relying more on just analyzing data to acting on it within the same interface.
Mike LeoneAnalyst, Enterprise Strategy Group
"The launch of Data Apps is a big deal for Sigma customers because it shifts the platform from relying more on just analyzing data to acting on it within the same interface," he said. "Data Apps … turns Sigma into more of an end-to-end solution for business teams that can help reduce software costs and streamline processes."
Perhaps the most valuable Data Apps feature is write-back, according to Farmer. Rather than write-back to a staging area for later integration with a cloud data storage platform, Data Apps directly writes data back to cloud data storage platforms in real time.
"The write-back to cloud platforms is significant because that pattern can ensure that data remains accurate and consistent across systems," Farmer said. "It also enables users to make decisions in their Data App -- such as changing the quantity of an order for a better discount -- and have it automatically synchronize with the purchasing system."
Leone likewise called write-back the most valuable of Data Apps' main features.
"Analytics shouldn't be just about viewing insights," he said. "Folks should be able to update and act on data within the same environment."
As an analytics vendor, Sigma Computing's competitors include Tableau, MicroStrategy and Qlik, among others. But unlike many of its competitors, Sigma Computing, founded in 2014, is relatively young. However, though an emerging vendor, Sigma Computing has garnered attention from investors that hint at its attractiveness.
In May 2024, Sigma Computing raised $200 million in venture capital funding, one of the largest funding rounds by a data vendor since early 2022, when capital market investments in tech companies slowed. Since then, AI-related vendors have largely been the tech companies to raise funding.
In addition, Sigma Computing is attractive to potential new customers unhappy with the direction of their current analytics providers, according to Farmer.
"Sigma is … increasingly getting attention from Tableau users who are drifting away from Salesforce and Power BI users who are uncomfortable with the rather forced platform integration of Power BI and Microsoft Fabric," he said. "Whenever I speak to Sigma users, they always praise the real-time collaboration features, and this does seem to be a significant differentiator."
The future
While Data Apps are now available, Sigma Computing plans to add new capabilities to improve their performance and connectivity with external platforms, according to Josipovic.
One initiative is to upgrade write-back capabilities to make them faster and easier. In addition, with Data Apps currently able to write-back only to Databricks, Snowflake and Amazon Redshift, the vendor plans to add a connector to Google BigQuery.
Other initiatives include adding more access controls to improve the security of Data Apps and supporting new data types, such as semantic and metadata columns, to help standardize data collection.
Farmer, meanwhile, suggested that Sigma Computing add agentic AI development tools. Agents are applications capable of acting autonomously to surface insights and make recommendations. In addition, they can take on certain repetitive tasks, such as documentation, thus making humans more efficient.
"It would be fascinating to see Data Apps, with all their promise, integrate with AI agents for more intelligent business processes [rather than] just triggered actions," Farmer said.
Eric Avidon is a senior news writer for Informa TechTarget and a journalist with more than 25 years of experience. He covers analytics and data management.
