Christian Chabot, Tableau co-founder and chairman, with new Tableau CEO Adam Selipsky. Photo via Michael Clinard/Tableau.
Christian Chabot, Tableau co-founder and chairman, with new Tableau CEO Adam Selipsky. Photo via Michael Clinard/Tableau.

The first earnings report with new CEO Adam Selipsky at the helm was a mixed bag for Tableau Software, as the Seattle-based visualization company beat Wall Street expectations on earnings per share and posted record quarterly revenue, but still came in well below analyst revenue forecasts.

Tableau stock dropped sharply in after hours trading as a result, down more than 13 percent.

Tableau reported non-GAAP net income of $13.3 million for the third quarter of 2016, or $0.16 per share on $206.1 million in revenue. Analysts surveyed by Yahoo Finance in advance expected an average of $.07 earnings per share on approximately $213.78 million in revenue. Total revenue increased 21 percent over this time last year, and license revenue rose 7 percent year-over-year.

“During the third quarter, we generated our highest quarterly revenues and expanded our customer base to over 50,000 customer accounts worldwide,” former CEO and current chairman Christian Chabot said in a statement. “But our results were impacted by extended sales cycles on large deals in the US and softness in EMEA.”

A look at Tableau 10. Photo via Tableau.
A look at Tableau 10. Photo via Tableau.

It’s been a busy couple of months at Tableau.

In September Selipsky, who spent the past decade growing Amazon Web Services into a cloud computing powerhouse that is on track to generate $10 billion per year in sales, replaced Chabot as CEO. Chabot helped start Tableau in 2003, eventually leading it through an IPO in 2013 and managing one of Seattle’s most successful tech companies in recent memory. After nearly 14 years, he won’t be at the helm, instead remaining at the company as chairman and a big-picture advisor.

“Tableau has that rare combination of a passionate customer base, leading products, amazingly talented people, dedication to technology innovation, and momentum in the market,” said Selipsky told GeekWire in August. “The company is positioned to become the new world standard in analytics. I’m honored to join the leadership team and all the great people that have fueled Tableau’s disruption of business analytics. As we add capabilities for our customers, deepen our enterprise presence, and expand into the cloud, our mission remains unchanged — to help people see and understand their data.”

In addition to the CEO transition, Tableau reportedly explored a sale earlier this summer, and was on a short list of possible acquisition targets for Salesforce.com.

As all of these big moves were happening, Tableau released Tableau 10, the newest iteration of the company’s data analytics and visualization software. The update, labeled as one of Tableau’s “most significant releases,” signals a shift for the company as it focuses more on IT and enterprise tools. It also comes as Tableau tries to get its stock price back to pre-2016 levels.

In the fourth quarter of 2015, the company posted a record $203 million in revenue, but took a $41 million loss. As a result, its stock lost about half its value and has yet to recover. The company’s stock fell each of the past two quarters as it was not able to meet Wall Street expectations.

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