If you were watching the close of the stock market on February 4, you saw a rather alarming moment for a medium-sized cloud computing and data analytics company called Tableau Software.

And yet Wall Street dramatically traded down the stock: What the heck happened? In the days that followed, it looked less and less likely that was the case. The Wall Street Journal , for example, blamed Tableau's reduced full-year outlook which cited softness in customer spending and noted collateral stock-price damage experienced by peers Salesforce, Workday, and Splunk, none of which had reported corporate earnings yet.

The Journal added that cloud computing companies carried already lofty valuations; perhaps this was a correction.

DATA Stock Price - Tableau Software Inc. Stock Quote (U.S.: NYSE) - MarketWatch

The disclosure in its Q4 results was a U. GAAP requirement and didn't impact its tax returns. Tableau declined to comment specifically on its stock price.

Pulling Stock Data for Visualization in Tableau | InterWorks, Inc.

Clearly I was wrong. So what really happened? Now that the dust has settled, I called three analysts to get more color. Josh Parenteau, a research director at Gartner focused on business intelligence and analytics companies, chalked up Tableau's troubles to increased competition in the category. But new entrants have increased competition, he said, citing Microsoft's Power BI 2.

Tableau still ends up winning many of these deals in the end but the sales cycle is taking longer.

And the commoditization of the category will continue, he added. I then sent a note to R. Is competition really to blame for a sudden and precipitous drop in stock price?

Not entirely, he said. Its guidance did not reflect the rest of the market. Take a look at Salesforce, which was also beat up during the last eight weeks, but post-earnings you saw it come back to late January levels.

But the percentage of loss is more reflective of dropping growth rates than the overall market decline. The market from a deal flow perspective appears to be growing. So what's the verdict?

Is Tableau to blame for its sudden devaluation or the greater competitive landscape? I emailed Karl Keirstead, a software equity research analyst at Deutsche Bank, for the tiebreaker. In his subsequent research note, Keirstead wrote that he couldn't find any convincing evidence at the summit that slowing IT spending on data analytics software was to blame.

As a result, Tableau is slowing the pace of its sales hiring in and focusing instead on training existing ones, he wrote. And what about competition in the category?

Keirstead dismissed it as a driver of Tableau's sudden stock price drop. Keirstead rated Tableau a "buy. Fortune Walmart Gears Up Anti-Amazon Stance in Wake of Whole Foods Deal. Fortune Intel Is Teaming With This Israeli Cybersecurity Incubator. Pedestrians carry umbrellas while walking past the New York Stock Exchange in February Fortune Adobe CEO Hints at Artificial Intelligence on Photoshop.

Adobe CEO Hints at Artificial Intelligence on Photoshop. Customer Service Site Map Privacy Policy Advertising Ad Choices Terms of Use Your California Privacy Rights Careers.

All products and services featured are based solely on editorial selection. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Quotes delayed at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Interactive Data. ETF and Mutual Fund data provided by Morningstar , Inc.

Powered and implemented by Interactive Data Managed Solutions.