What do Microsoft Word and Adobe have in common? Both had established market spaces completely disrupted by new entrants that brought realtime collaboration to the user experience. Whilst the barrier to entry for adding features akin to Figma, Google Docs, and Miro had been high, it is now possible to build new collaborative applications, or even simply add collaborative features to existing applications – without building the realtime infrastructure that powers them.

These days, companies have access to more data sources and formats than ever before: databases, websites, SaaS (software as a service) applications, and analytics tools, to name a few. Unfortunately, the ways businesses often store this data make it challenging to extract the valuable insights hidden within — especially when you need it for smarter data-driven business decision-making.