Connectors are used to set up data connections. The connectors can be seen as adapters which can translate data queries between Spotfire and an external system. Which connectors you have access to depends on several different things:
What licenses the groups you belong to have been granted access to by the Spotfire administrator.
Whether or not your computer has the required drivers for a certain connector. See the system requirements at http://support.spotfire.com/sr.asp for details.
TIBCO Spotfire Connectors is deployed as a separate product on the server and then downloaded to all clients that want to use data connections. There is a separate help file included with the product that will be available under Help > Additional Help Topics in TIBCO Spotfire after the update is downloaded. In this help file you can read more about each connector and get information about what is required to log in to a specific connector, which functions are supported, etc.
See also:
What is a Connection Data Source?