February 2019
“Who are JMP’s competitors? (maybe we have them in narrow areas)—but there is nothing else like it.
Who is as interactive?
Who else does as great a job at DOE?
Who does analysis faster and bigger on the desktop?
Who else does Graph Builder as well?
No one, because JMP is truly unique in the crowded marketplace.” -John Sall
Note: This is a first pass at a SWOT for Qlik. We need to partner with the sales teams to provide feedback on this SWOT as conversations about JMP Live take place. Thanks in advance for the feedback.
Company
- Qlikis a software company founded in 1993 in Sweden and now based in Radnor, Pennsylvania, whose main products are QlikView and Qlik Sense, software for business intelligence & data visualization. They claim to have tens of thousands of customers globally and more than 1,700 partners, including systems integrators, OEM partners, managed service providers, and technology partners.
- They have experienced significant changes in executive leadership, particularly the CEO, CTO and VP of Sales, which may signal some instability.
Product
- QlikView was their first product. It allows developers and analysts to build and deploy analytic applications and interactive dashboards. They claim easily accessible interfaces, which can be highly customized to meet specific needs, while promoting the highest level of interactive discovery and maintaining tight governance. High-level overview of other QlikView components and capabilities:
- Qlik Associative Difference to explore and probe QlikView applications, allowing users to engage with the data through selection and search, highlighting relationships with easy-to-understand color cues.
- Comparative Analysis to select and compare multiple data sets within an application.
- Social Data Discovery for users to share insights with groups working together live or asynchronously, including the ability to append discussions to visualizations and share bookmarks.
- Mobile Data Discovery to reach users via mobile devices.
- Agile Application Development to build interactive applications and deliver them to users for self-service analytics, including a data integration layer to transform and load data from multiple sources. Developers of these apps can also use a vast array of APIs as well as connect to some Big Data sources without having to load all of the data info memory enabling direct discovery.
- Enterprise capabilities to make it easier for IT to secure, administer and scale the deployment of the apps in QlikView. They claim “robust security for users, data, and applications, and load balancing and clustering to scale deployments“.
- Qlik Sense is their platform for self-service oriented analytics, claiming to support the full range of analytics: self-service data visualization and exploration, guided analytic apps/dashboards, custom and embedded analytics, mobile analytics, and reporting. Qlik Sense also includes the Associative Difference. There is a fair bit of overlap with QlikView and Qlik Sense, so much so that Qlik created material justifying the creation of Qlik Sense, while also creating material to say they are still committed to QlikView users.
- Other products include
- Qlik Analytics Platform allowing developers to develop, extend and embed visual analytics in apps, portals, etc. with a common governance and security framework.
- Qlik Core serving as their native cloud analytics development platform.
- Qlik Data Catalyst delivering “analytics-ready” data to business users.
- as well as some “value added products”:
- Qlik Associative Big Data Index identifying relationships across data sources, for users to further leverage.
- Qlik NPrinting providing customizable report creation in a variety of formats via a variety of channels.
- Qlik GeoAnalytics providing map visualizations and geo-analytics for Qlik Sense and QlikView.
- as well as Qlik DataMarket and Qlik Connectors.
Target Audience
- Information producers (developers and power users), information consumers (anyone with a browser-based device that needs information), as well as IT for deployment, security, and admin.
Feature Strength and JMP Response
- QlikView and Qlik Sense have been applauded for scalability, primarily because the Associative Engine supports multiple data sources, complex data models, and complex calculations. JMP users’ needs to collaborate and share are targeted to those who work more closely with scientists and engineers in the organization. This is why we are leveraging JMP Public and a few early adopters to better size the server for JMP Live so it will scale. JMP also supports multiple data sources and the Query Builder is a great way to deal with complex data models. JMP supports even more complex data calculations in-line with Graph Builder and many more options with the Formula Editor.
- Enterprise governance features. JMP Live may not have extensive governance features in the initial release, but we have several things on the roadmap.
- Ability to analyze both at-rest and streaming data, multi-cloud, big data and more with its standard and other connectors. We don’t make as big of a deal listing out all of our data connectors, but we have started to compile a list on the Sales and Marketing Community.
- Qlik’s vast partner network is credited with leading some 70% of Qlik’s implementations. Qlik partners also create product extensions, provide prebuilt content and training, via the marketplace or the community. Though JMP’s Partner Program is currently on hold, we have several partners globally and interest from more to join when the program is set to resume some time in 2019.
Feature Weaknesses and JMP Response
- Qlik’s data management and data preparation capabilities are weak. Complex joins require scripting and there is no point-and-click formula editor or a way to calculate new variables or transform existing variables on the fly the ways there are in JMP. JMP has extensive, easy-to-use data prep.
- Qlik’s analytics don’t come close to what JMP has. If organizations really want to leverage their data, JMP and/or JMP Pro and JMP Live can take them to the next level.
Opportunities for JMP
- Because of issues with migration, which can include an upgrade within product lines as well as from QlikView to Qlik Sense, there may be opportunities for JMP to be considered. Because Qlik has allowed Qlik Sense and QlikView to coexist, migration tools have been scant until the 2017 release. The latest Gartner BI and Analytics Magic Quadrant indicates that “Eighteen percent of Qlik's customers plan to discontinue or reduce using QlikView, and Qlik Sense will not necessarily be the replacement. The lack of simple migration tools means that customers may well switch vendors instead.”
- Our extensive sales expertise in meeting the needs of scientists and engineers.
- A more fully integrated solution that brings data visualization and analysis to a wide group of “specific-use” customers (i.e. DOE, Reliability, Consumer Research, etc.) with more functionality in just one product, including text analytics, functional data analysis, etc. These capabilities offer unique reports and visualizations to be shared via JMP Live.
- JMP has had solid growth and is part of SAS, also with solid growth over decades.
Threats for JMP
- The Qlik Associative Engine is something that has set it apart since its inception. Qlik has done a better job providing clear examples of its value improving data literacy overall. Qlik has taken this message beyond product promotion, by sponsoring virtual events, meet-ups, etc. They have used this to message data-for-good efforts. From the Gartner BI and Analytics Magic Quadrant: “Fast Company magazine recognized Qlik as one of the Top 10 innovative companies for Social Good. Qlik's Change Our World Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program, launched in 2010, now provides free software and services for more than 300 not-for-profit organizations.”
Pricing
- User-based and server-based pricing to support both QlikView as well as Qlik Sense. They are transitioning to a subscription-based pricing model.
- Qlik Sense Cloud for Cloud Basic is free; Cloud Business is $15/user/month (billed annually).
- Qlik Sense for the Desktop is free; for the enterprise, they will quote a price for user-, server-, and subscription-based licensing options.
- QlikView Personal Edition is free; the Enterprise Edition is quoted.
- Recent comments in some of the reviews indicate that upgrading to the paid version is not considered cheap at all and that implementation is expensive.
Competitive references where we’ve won against them or displaced them.
