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Not applicable

QlikView vs BusinessObjects (BO)

Hey everybody,

I'm currently trying to compare QlikView 9 and BO XI.

I found a blog comparing both products http://qlikviewvsolap.blogspot.com/2009/02/qlikview-vs-bo.html.

I need to answer questions like : what's the best between BO universe and QV script, which one has the best GUI, which one is the most competitive according to the number of end users, the amount of data, etc

Has any of you some documentations, website, blog that could help me to make this comparison.

Regards

Kevin

23 Replies
pablolabbe
Luminary Alumni
Luminary Alumni

Compare Qlikview with BO is like to compare Orange with Banana, they both are fruits but they are different, in shape, health properties and so on.

It´s very important to define what your users need in terms of data Analisys. Depending on your answers, the choice could be Qlikview or BO.

You choose Qlikview if you want:

- Rapid Time to Value.

- No need to pre build a Datawarehouse. If you don´t have one, you will not need it.

- Querys with subsecond responses, achieved with In-Memory Data.

- Enable users to explore data from less detail (more agregated data) to transaction level (detailed data).

- High interactive Dashboards.

- One Single Product for ETL, Development and End User Analysis.

- Empower Users with the hability to create their own analysis with their own data.

You choose BO if:

- You want to expend lot of time and money building a datawarehouse and that is not a problem in your project. Connecting BO directly to your production database could seriouly impact performance.

- Also you have a dedicated DBA to manage the datawarehouse.

- Your users need to create static Reports, not dynamic Analysis.

- If you already a SAP customer, maybe they gave you the software for free. But you still need to pay a lot of consulting.

I sugest you to:

- Show BO and Qlikview to your users and let then choose.

- Make a proof of concept with your company Data with both products.

Not applicable
Author

Thanks for your answer.

Actually there are no clients, nor users. My company is currently putting forward BO to our client and they want to know if instead of BO they can put forward QV.

As you said it's like comparing an Orange and a Banana but in a certain way I'm sure we can compare them.

Not applicable
Author

Hi I have started using QV recently. I see that QV does not ad-hoc reporting capability. I feel that as major difference between BO and QV.

Correct me If I am wrong

Not applicable
Author

Kevin,

Check this http://www.qlik.com/us/explore/resources/analyst-reports/gartner-report-magic-quadrant

johnw
Champion III
Champion III


Karthik N S wrote:Hi I have started using QV recently. I see that QV does not ad-hoc reporting capability. I feel that as major difference between BO and QV.
Correct me If I am wrong




I suppose that depends on what you mean by ad-hoc reporting. QlikView loads all of the data into memory according to a script. Generally speaking, your users then interact with the data in the ways you have set up. You can set up very dynamic charts if desired.

What QlikView doesn't let your users do is actually CHANGE what data is loaded into memory. They can't go and run SQL against the live databases (well, not usually). They're always interacting with a copy of the data. The load script can use SQL against the live databases, but this is under developer control, not user control. On the other hand, if you want your users to be able to view any field from the database, feel free to load every single field in. I don't do that personally - I want to exercise more control over what my users see and what they don't see, plus our real databases are fairly generic and cryptic and not really understandable by users.

I don't believe our own users do this, but the users CAN create completely new charts on the fly, and can share these with other users. The difficulty is that except for the simplest possible charts, this is probably beyond most users. Well, it's not REALLY that hard. It's like getting good at Excel, and not really much more complicated than that, and in some ways simpler. But our users don't bother. They just come to the systems department when they want a new field on a chart, for instance. Our turnaround time for simple changes is very fast, so it isn't much of an issue. I can see how if we were a lot slower at getting them their data, they might want to learn how to create their own charts.

(Edit: Found out today that at least one user is using at least one user-defined chart, because I accidentally broke it when I removed a bunch of "unused" fields from the in-memory data model. Oops!)

Oleg_Troyansky
Partner Ambassador/MVP
Partner Ambassador/MVP

Kevin,

BO is one of the older "traditional" technologies (by traditional I mean those Data Warehousing tools that were developed in 70-s and 80-s prior to the emergence of "in-memory" technologies like QlikView). Back then, computer resources were limited and expensive and human resources were unlimited and relatively inexpensive. Hence, the overall "theme" for those tools is - if you put a lot of efforts into architecture, design, analysis and development, you'll build a decent end result.

QlikView, on the other side, is based on a newer paradigm, when computer resources are virtually unlimited and cheap, while human resources are limited and expensive. Hence, our "theme" is - we can make the hardware work hard and develop killer applications in days and weeks, instead of in week and months.

The rest (universes, GUI, etc) is semantics and feature juggling.

Bottom line is - QlikView is successfully replacing BO at many companies, to the great satisfaction of the end users.

Not applicable
Author

John,

Thanks for your elaborate explanation.

I am preparing presentation on advantages of QV over BO, the points mentioned in this blog are useful and leverage it to the maximum possible extent in presentation that I am preparing.

I request you share some more thoughts if you have any that you believe helpful for me

Thanks

Karthik N S

Not applicable
Author

Hi Karthik,

Is it possible for you to share ur presentation when it will be over?

Regards

Kevin

Or
MVP
MVP

In bullet points, and I may repeat things already mentioned above..

SAP Business Objects XI:

  • Has proven itself capable of handling hundreds or even thousands of users at once
  • Allows users to generate their own "reports" or "analytics" (e.g. OLAP views) without IT / analyst assistance
  • Has very strong metadata management capabilities
  • Provides an array of different tools that can be used in different ways to achieve different goals or meet requirements from different user types, from speedy simple analysis (Polestar) to complex dimensional analysis (Voyager) to dashboards to reporting.
  • Tends to provide poor performance, particularly in Dashboarding (Xcelsius) and Voyager (OLAP), and particularly when users are working remotely over a smaller pipe (e.g. home DSL or cellular modem)
  • Has poor support
  • Requires a data warehouse and a full-scale, long-term project
  • Has no pack-and-go solutions and very partial Smartphone support (only for WEBI, the reporting tool)
  • Uses a web browser as its only client application

QlikView:

  • Has proven itself in the small/medium market, but does not have nearly as many large-company implementations as BO
  • Requires IT/Analyst support to create new means of displaying data
  • Lacks strong metadata management (but this is supposedly being fixed in QV10, release this September)
  • Provides a single tool for all users, meaning less training and implementation time and a more intuitive interface, but can't adapt to specific user needs
  • Tends to provide excellent performance both over LAN and remotely (even over smaller pipes)
  • Has strong community support, and generally has strong vendor support
  • Does not require a data warehouse, time to go-live tends to be much shorter than BO (QV claims 1/4 of the time)
  • Has a pack-and-go solution for offline work, and supports Smartphones, iPhones, and iPads.
  • Has both a web-only (AJAX) and Client application, the latter tending to provide significantly better performance.

Full disclosure: I've been working with QV/QVS (No publisher) since 2003, and with BO XI for about a year. I think Polestar, and to a lesser extent Xcelsius, are good tools, WEBI is nothing to write home about, and Voyager is downright awful to the point where most potential users refuse to use it even after extended training.

I would also appreciate a copy of your comparison when you finish it.

Regards,

Or