Qlik Sense vs QlikView

Qlik has finally released its long awaited Qlik Sense platform on 17th September 2014. Qlik Sense is a next-generation self-service data visualization application from Qlik (see more here What is Qlik Sense?). According to Qlik, Qlik Sense is built on the QIX Associative Data Indexing engine, the second generation of Qlik’s proven and patented engine technology.

It has some dramatic changes compared to QlikView, such as drag-and-drop visualization, server side dashboard development and distribution, a token based pricing (Qlik Sense pricing), overhauled data extraction, integrated maps, new charts, etc.

Is Qlik Sense new QlikView or QlikView 12? The answer is no. Qlik started the project as QlikView,Next which was implying that the next product will be the new version of QlikView which is on version 11 released in 2011. But Qlik has changed the name to Qlik Sense. It makes sense because this product is different. Not entirely but different.

Conceptually, Qlik Sense and QlikView targets different types of BI. Here is the semi-official explanation of QlikView versus Qlik Sense which is taken from Qlik Community:

QlikView is a tool for situations where you want prepared business applications, i.e. applications created by developers who put a lot of thought into the data model, the layout, the charts and the formula; and deliver the applications to end-users who consume the applications. Qlik calls this Guided Analytics. The end-user has total freedom to explore data, select, drill down and navigate in the information, and can this way discover both questions and answers in the data. The end-user is however limited when it comes to creating new visualizations. This type of situation will without doubt be common for many, many years to come. For more information on Qlik View, refer to our What is QlikView? QlikView Overview post. 

Qlik Sense is a tool for situations where you don’t want to pre-can so much. Instead you want the user to have the freedom to create a layout of his own and in it, new visualizations; charts that the developer couldn’t imagine that the user wants to see. You want Self-service data discovery, which means a much more active, modern, engaged user. In addition, Qlik Sense is much easier to use when you have a touch screen, and is adaptive to different screen sizes and form factors. On the whole, Qlik Sense is a much more modern tool. (Source : Qlik Sense or Qlik View)

To find out more about Qlik Sense you can check Qlik Sense for beginners.

Technically, Qlik Sense seems to use the same data engine and expression syntax in the back-end. Front end is entirely different. But what would be the road map than? Would Qlik Sense and QlikView merge? There is no official roadmap for now but here are sum hints for the future from Henric Cronström, VP for Product in QlikView:

One of the main goals for Qlik Sense was to have one unified client that could run on anything  (=html5). Another goal was to generalize the chart drawing code, so that more graph types could be implemented (=extensions). A third goal was that the client needed to be adaptable to screen sizes and form factors.

These three goals meant total incompatibility with the existing C++ client, and - unfortunately - only a partial backward compatibility. So, we had to start developing from scratch, but to re-implement all functionality from QlikView 11 in a new tool would take a very long time. And, we just haven't done it yet...

I am not allowed to tell you what we have planned for the future, but I can see several possible scenarios: Merge the two products. Or, QlikView disappears because Qlik Sense is so much better. Or, the two products continue in parallel: QlikView survives and flourishes since it is much more flexible and allows for a much greater customization and Application building.

We will see. I can only promise that Qlik will listen to the customers and make decisions based on the feedback. (Source : Qlik Sense or Qlik View)

What I understand (as many does) from this post is that Qlik is actually working to merge both products but it is still WIP. It seems very likely that both products will merge since Qlik also did not made any major upgrade to its now aging QlikView 11. Maybe QlikView 12 will never be a reality and instead we will see a new Qlik Sense version (a server) which handles all QlikView and Qlik Sense applications on a single platform.

A must have QlikView reference.

Qlik Sense for Beginners

Tableau and Splunk partner up

Tableau, one of the hottest and most popular Business Intelligence and Analytics platform in the market, Splunk, a Big Data player that specializes in machine data, goes to a technical partnership that will make their products work together.

Tableau will connect through to the semi- and unstructured data managed by Splunk using an ODBC driver that Splunk had previously made available. But rather than making users build a generic ODBC connection, Splunk will now appear as an explicit data source option inside Tableau.

Splunk's analytics software detects bottlenecks in companies' applications and networks, while Tableau's software provides a way for business executives to create graphs and charts with their company data.

Both companies are growing extremely fast: Tableau's year-over-year revenue growth has spiraled upward 62%, 71%, 90% and 95% in the last four quarters, while Splunk's year-over-year quarterly revenue has grown by over 50% in each of the last four quarters. Tableau shares are up 41% so far this year after ending 2013 up 122% from its May 17 IPO offering price. Shares of Splunk are up 34% this year after ending 2013 up more than 136%.

Tableau Software

Business Analytics Translational Center in Singapore (BATC)

If you need to manage enormous amounts of data and/or you are struggling to put it to work in decision making, forecasting and predicting, it may be time for you to deploy advanced business analytics tools. And if you are in Singapore, you can turn to Business Analytics Translational Center (BATC) to help your company.

This Business Analytics Center in Singapore, cross-agency initiative by A*STAR (Institute for Infocomm Research (I²R) and Exploit Technologies Private Limited) and the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), has been launched back in September 2012 with an aim to strengthen the availability and adoption of business analytics as an integral component of businesses in Singapore:


The Centre provides key services and activities around Business analytics such as Productization of business analytics technologies through collaboration with industry on projects from thought to adoption, Promoting national awareness and adoption of business analytics through events and target group discussions, Conducting research on general business and technology trends, as well as competitive and business intelligence for particular industry or companies and training of business analytics professionals through direct involvement in projects, as well as training of IT professionals through collaborations with IHLs or international organizations.

In the opening ceremony speech, Minister in the Prime Minister's Office and Second Minister for Home Affairs and Trade and Industry Mr S. Iswaran stressed that Singapore is in good stead to seize opportunities in the market for business analytics. "The country has the expertise, talent and the infrastructure for analytics, as well as a pro-business climate."

Business Analytics levels - Image: ST Electronics

Business Analytics is an umbrella term defining skills, technologies, applications and practices for continuous iterative exploration and investigation of past business performance to gain insight and drive business planning. It is more advanced than Business Intelligence in a sense that it does not provide intelligent reports and dashboards but it also employs complex business modellings for forecasting, prediction and optimization.  \
An example Business Analytics study was recently reported in the Singapore media:

"The locations of taxi pick-ups and drop-offs during the morning peak hour period are being studied by researchers at A*STAR's Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), in an effort to analyse the patterns of taxi demand and supply. Using data management and mining systems to plough through billions of data points about the positions of 15,000 taxis here, researchers then plot the trajectories of the taxis to determine the locations of taxi pick-ups and drop-offs. "
This research may one day contribute towards developing a smart system that not only notifies taxi-drivers of the best places to pick up their passengers, but also enables traffic to be monitored and managed in real-time, said Minister in Prime Minister's Office S Iswaran yesterday at the opening of the Business Analytics Translational Centre. Source : Taxi drop-offs and pick-ups being studied