QlikTech Launches QlikView 8, the Next Generation of In-Memory Business Intelligence

May 10, 2007; 03:32 AM
-QlikTech, the global leader in next-generation business intelligence (BI) solutions based on the in-memory approach it pioneered, today announced the official launch of QlikView 8, the company’s next major release of its revolutionary software. QlikTech will unveil the new product in North America at Software 2007, a gathering of more than 2,000 software industry executives, and in Europe at Qonnections 2007, QlikTech’s global customer and partner conference that commenced today in the Netherlands.

QlikView 8 extends QlikTech’s mission of “simplifying analysis for everyone” further than ever before. Expanded personalization and visualization features, combined with enhanced collaborative and deployment capabilities, allow QlikView 8 to scale to the most information-intensive organizations. “QlikView 8 truly represents the next generation of business intelligence, creating significant new opportunities for innovation and superior performance for organizations of all sizes and across all industries,” said Måns Hultman, CEO of QlikTech.

More than 200 QlikTech customers and partners have been working with the beta version of QlikView 8 since February 2007. “With hundreds of new features and performance gains of more than 30%, user feedback has been phenomenally positive,” said Jonas Nachmanson, Vice President Research and Development at QlikTech. “QlikView’s revolutionary in-memory design provides the flexibility and speed needed for powerful business analysis.”

The new features of QlikView 8 are based on four main innovation themes: actionable analytics, collaborative analytics, mass user deployment and mass document deployment.

Actionable Analytics

Strategic business intelligence lies not only in analyzing the past, but also in better predicting the future – making calculated business decisions through what-if scenarios on budgeting and planning, for example – and then capturing results for future comparison. QlikView 8 will make sophisticated analysis smarter by:

• Creating placeholder fields, which hold data in memory and can be treated just like any other data
• Allowing data to be entered/edited in placeholder fields and distributed across aggregations as necessary

"Our existing QlikView 7 applications provide a wealth of historical data, but QlikView 8 will allow users to do forward-looking analysis and compare different scenarios with a few clicks," said Steve Hunt, Vice President and CIO at SI International, a leading system integrator to many US government agencies. "Our managers will be much better able to understand the future implications of today's decisions."

Collaborative Analytics

Improved business performance is a team effort, one that requires users to work together to find insight from data, and then share that analysis with others. QlikView 8 fosters collaborative business intelligence through:

• Private and shared document objects, bookmarks and reports
• QlikView Server operating as a central “hub” for managing shared objects
• “Click to mail” bookmarks
• Locally developed analysis shared on local servers
• Embedding QlikView in client applications such as Microsoft® Office™

“QlikView 8 creates a framework for true collaboration,” said Steve Stroupe, Project Manager at Colonial Supplemental Insurance, based in the US. “We do a lot of collaborative analysis – talking with our territory managers. This allows us to not only discuss the state of the business, but also to manage and report on it together at the same time.”

Mass User Deployment

The goal of business intelligence is to deliver personalized analysis to the right users at the right time, enabling users to make better business decisions. Companies need to deploy analysis to hundreds or thousands of users, ensuring that all have access to the latest QlikView functionality. QlikView 8 streamlines mass deployment through:

• Simplified server requirements for QlikView Server and QlikView Publisher, the module that automates data refresh and ensures appropriate access for specific users
• Simplified deployment of the AJAX zero-footprint client and Java client
• A web services interface to QlikView Server
• Optimized and simplified installation

Mass Document Deployment

The proliferation of QlikView both within the enterprise and to the “extended enterprise” demands secure and simple administration of large numbers of QlikView reports. QlikView 8 ensures this by:

• Synchronizing releases of QlikView Server and QlikView Publisher
• Integrating installation for QlikView Server and QlikView Publisher Standard Edition
• Providing direct access to QlikView Server and QlikView Publisher-managed documents within the QlikView client

QlikView 8 also includes enhancements to its industry-leading visualization of data. Users can display results in more than two dozen colorful chart format styles – from “funnel” and Pareto charts to heat maps – and with multiple “gauges” for improved information management. “New layout features and reporting charts in QlikView 8 make it even easier to see results according to my preferences,” said Thomas Nilsson, IT Manager at HemoCue, a Swedish manufacturer of medical diagnostic products. “Looking at the same data in a different way gives you the same answers, of course, yet it can spark different ideas. Not only is it more interactive, it’s also more intuitive.”

The release of QlikView 8 coincides with growing industry recognition for QlikTech, which is based in Radnor, Pennsylvania. Earlier this month, the Sand Hill Group selected QlikTech as one of six companies participating in the “Fast Track” category of the Innovation Showcase at Software 2007. QlikTech was also recently named a finalist for the Red Herring 100 Award for its leading role in innovation and technology. In 2006, industry analyst IDC named QlikTech as the fastest growing BI software company in the world for the third year in a row, and analyst firm Gartner recognized QlikTech as a “Visionary” in its annual Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms in January 2007.

Hosted by the Sand Hill Group and CMP Technology, Software 2007 represents a unique platform to discuss key industry trends for more than 2,000 executives from across the software industry ecosystem, including CEOs, CIOs, venture capitalists, private equity partners, investment bankers, press and analysts. This year’s conference theme is “Powered by Innovation”. Qonnections 2007, QlikTech’s second annual global customer and partner summit, is being held this week at the Taets Art Museum in Amsterdam. The conference features dozens of presentations by QlikTech customers, partners and executives, as well as a Partner Showcase and the InterQonnections Café “genius bar.”

About QlikTech

QlikTech, the global leader in next-generation business intelligence solutions, offers sophisticated in-memory analysis and reporting solutions for enterprise and individual customers. QlikTech supports an open information architecture, where business information is broadly, affordably and quickly available to those who need it. QlikTech’s flagship product, QlikView, uses next-generation patented in-memory association technology to make sophisticated analysis dramatically easier to deploy, use and maintain. QlikView’s click driven, visually interactive interface is simple for end users to learn and use.

QlikTech is the world’s fastest growing business intelligence software company with more than 5,880 customers in 73 countries, and is adding more than 10 new customers each working day. In addition to thousands of small and midsized companies, QlikTech’s customers include large corporations such as Tetra Pak, Deutsche Telekom, Reuters, 3M, Colonial Supplemental Insurance and BMW. QlikTech is privately held and venture backed by Accel Partners, Jerusalem Venture Partners and Industrifonden. Founded in Sweden, QlikTech is headquartered in Radnor, Pennsylvania, has subsidiaries in the United Kingdom, Germany, Netherlands and Scandinavia. More than 500 companies around the world partner with QlikTech. For more information on QlikView, please call 1-888-828-9768 or visit www.QlikTech.com.

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