QlikView SA, the local representative of the world’s fastest-growing Business Intelligence (BI) software company QlikTech, used the first ever South African QlikView User Conference on November 10 in Johannesburg to unveil QlikView Version 9 – its flagship BI platform.
Davide Hanan, MD of QlikView SA (QlikTech’s 2008 Partner of the Year), welcomed a near-capacity turnout of 350 QlikView users, including a QlikTech delegation led by chairman Måns Hultman and CTO Jonas Nachmanson.
A full-day speaker programme followed, offering among others a rare look at QlikView’s roadmap and a range of top SA customer brand case studies – including Mondi Packaging, Distell, Rand Refinery, ICC Durban and PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
The day was rounded off with networking around the platform that analysts, media and competitors unanimously acknowledge as revolutionary today.
Deployments anywhere, anytime for anyone in the organisation
Providing companies with the ability to access and analyse real-time operational data for meaningful business answers, QlikView has set the standard for BI simplicity, usability and time to value, noted Hultman.
“Today, QlikView 9 builds on our long-standing success as the first and only BI tool to meet the needs of all business and power users. It works equally well in any size deployment and on any platform, and can be accessed anywhere and at any time – including on-premise, in the cloud or on a laptop or mobile device.”
In addition, QlikView 9 offers significantly enhanced enterprise manageability, performance and scalability, as well as real-time reporting capabilities.
Highlights of QlikView 9 include:
• Enterprise manageability – “While supporting larger-than-ever deployments through significant new manageability, performance and scalability as well as real-time data and reporting enhancements, QlikView will continue to support its foundational midrange market,” commented Nachmanson.
o Comprehensive, highly visual control panels – a single view of all QlikView servers and modules across an entire deployment.
o Load balancing – auto-senses multiple loads and automatically re-routes users.
o Field Frequency Calculation Optimisation – better handling of large, complex and concurrent queries without impeding performance.
o Supports data sets with billions of records.
o AJAX and Java Thin-Client Collaboration Support – sharing of user objects and shared objects between browser-based QlikView users, for collaborative analysis, and ensures the same version of truth.
o Real-time data – In-memory data is refreshed in real time, ensuring that analyses reflect reality in business-critical environments. For example, financial institutions can analyse trading patterns and call centres can evaluate agent performance.
o PDF report generation and distribution – seamlessly integrated into QlikView process flows, ensuring that users requiring static reports automatically get them.
• Cloud availability – through Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) Web service, QlikView 9 can be deployed in the cloud for shorter time-to-value, “elastic”, on-the-fly scalability and lower upfront cost. Companies running QlikView 9 in the cloud enjoy platform neutrality and can be up and running in 15 minutes.
• QlikView Mobile – QlikView 9 is the first BI tool that delivers a truly interactive mobile BI experience by taking full advantage of leading devices’ native functionality. It supports iPhone, BlackBerry and Symbian-based smartphones. The new QlikView Java Mobile client further supports devices running Java Virtual Machine.
• QlikView Personal Edition – Create custom apps with no previous technical training or experience, with a fully-functional, free downloadable developer tool for personal use – supported by community.qlikview.com.
• Enhanced visualisation and search capabilities – new, state-of-the-art visualisations including detailed charting features and live chart backgrounds provide more analytical and display flexibility than ever. QlikView 9 also incorporates the BI industry’s most comprehensive global search functionality, allowing users to search every QlikView field simultaneously, from anywhere in the application, with just one click.
An industry in transition
“The BI industry is in the midst of a major transition,” said Hanan, in conclusion. “Time to value and usability are now the defining forces influencing adoption. Our dramatic growth to date is a testament to that fact, with 63% growth on average over the past five years (internationally). In contrast, traditional BI providers are experiencing significant revenue declines and are surviving on maintenance and services fees.”
QlikView 9 is available as a download through community.qlikview.com and the QlikTech partner network. QlikView Personal Edition is also available as a download at www.qlikview.com.
