The 3 Major Players in Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms

Tableau offers an expansive visual BI and analytics platform, and is widely regarded as the major player in the marketplace. The company’s analytic software portfolio is available through three main channels: Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, and Tableau Online. Tableau connects to hundreds of data sources and is available on-prem or in the cloud. The vendor also offers embedded analytics capabilities, and users can visualize and share data with Tableau Public. Tableau is publicly traded and headquartered in Seattle, Washington.

Microsoft is one of a handful of major players in enterprise BI and analytics. The company’s flagship platform, Power BI, is cloud-based and delivered on the Azure Cloud. On-prem capabilities also exist for individual users or when power users are authoring complex data mashups using in-house data sources. Power BI is unique because it enables users to do data preparation, data discovery, and dashboards with the same design tool. The platform integrates with Excel and Office 365, and has a very active user community that extends the tool’s capabilities.

Qlik offers a broad spectrum of BI and analytics tools, which is headlined by the company’s flagship offering, Qlik Sense. The solution allows organizations to combine all their data sources into a single view. The in-memory engine and associative analytics indexes every possible relationship to data, and the platform is available on-prem (Qlik Sense Enterprise) or in the cloud (Qlik Sense Cloud). Qlik’s product portfolio is rounded out by its Qlik Analytics Platform (embedded and custom tools), and Qlik View, the company’s first-generation data discovery tool. Qlik was acquired by Thoma Bravo in 2016.