Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms

Magic quadrant for analytics and
business intelligence platforms
Part A
Introduction
The magic quadrant is divided into four quadrants as used in business intelligence platforms. The
quadrants include; leaders quadrant, challengers quadrant, niche players quadrant and visionaries
quadrant (Howson et al, 2018). The quadrant of interest in this synopsis is leaders’ quadrant and
visionaries’ quadrant. Leaders’ quadrant consists Microsoft, Qlik and Tableau (Sallam et al, 2014).
Some of the software included in the visionaries’ software are Sisense, ThoughtSpot, Salesforce,
SAS, SAP, IBM and TIBCO software (Sun et al, 2015). Among the aforementioned software in
visionaries’ software, TIBCO software will be discussed alongside leaders’ quadrant software.
Leaders’ quadrant software
i. Microsoft
Microsoft power BI offers variety of activities in regards to data. Microsoft power BI gives
preparation of data, offers interactive dashboards, discovery of data and augmented analytics
through single product (Naidoo, 2019). This software is available in SaaS option that runs in the
Azure Cloud. Power BI report server enables users to share reports excluding dashboards but it
lacks the capabilities of the machine learning structured in Power BI SaaS. Power BI Desktop
can be used independently as personal tool for analysis needed when the power users are
handling complex data including the on-premise data sources.
The Microsoft Power BI Pro’s is one of the lowest priced data analytics tool in the market today.
Though in the 2017, Microsoft launched Power BI Premium whose price was scaled in the

market at $4,995 per month (Salvador, 2018). The price was not constant and depended on
scalability and usage requirements. High level of consumer interest and adoption made it appear
in the leaders’ quadrant. Among other things is its ability for clear and visionary products.
Strengths and cautions of Microsoft
Microsoft Power BI is owned by most of the companies because of its current low price. Before
the deployment of Microsoft, the vendor will already have changed modern analytics and the BI
does its shortlisting from greenfield evaluation. Low prices from Microsoft have helped in
bringing down the pricing pressure arising on analytics and BI market with its subscription price.
Also, it is easy to use and visual appealing since it score high in its ease of use winning the hearts
of most of the customers. Other strengths of Microsoft are product vision and customer
experience.
Microsoft Power BI mostly concentrates on the mode 2 analytics while its component on-
premises SQL server reporting services solves the needs of mode 1. It has low breadth of use in
performing complex queries data, preparation and applying predictive models among others. Can
be corrected by integrating all the Microsoft features to eliminate two product deployment.
ii. Qlik
It gains control in discovery of data and agile analytics and BI through its lead product Qlik
Sense. It enables developers to create the customized applications and for the attached use case.
With Qlik, customers are able to build robust, interactive and visual applications (Palanisamy and
Thirunavukarasu, 2017). Engines are opted for by some customers for use as data mart in the
traditional data warehousing. It has feature that support mode 1 BI giving report distribution and
scheduling. The progress of Qlik in augmented analytics and improved market strategy together

with its ease of use has made it listed in the leader quadrant but it has the poorest market
execution compared to other software in the leaders’ quadrant.
Strengths and cautions of Qlik
One of the strengths of Qlik is its robust application in scalable products because it support
complex data models and calculations as well as multiple data sources. Developers are not
limited to menu driven options since the vendors invest in point and click in the data loading
process (Kovačević and Mekterović, 2017). Qlik have struggled to bring about differentiated
marketing thus improving literacy of data as a way of overall analytics in BI program in those
days. Finally on the strengths of Qlik is the product vision where partners were allowed to
develop content for further extension of the platform or even monetize the prebuilt industry
vertical applications and partner network that allow long term relationship with the customers
and understanding their specific requirements.
Caution for use of Qlik was its implementation approach other than self-service data preparation
and analysis. The recent changes have been made to allow for self-service analytics but it has
been partially addressed. Furthermore, Qlik has slow momentum of share growth as well as
migration challenges. It can be improved by increasing its speed of data sharing and
strengthening its analytic workflow to match other competitors in the market.
iii. Tableau
It offers spontaneous interactive visual-based exploration experience that enable the business
users to have access, prepare, analyze and present findings in the data without the need of
technical skills or coding (Santos et al, 2017). People can easily get insight of their data through
using tableau. It has some of the desirable features in modern analytics and BI platforms. Its