Gartner Magic Quadrant 2021 results are in. Thoughts?
Microsoft and Tableau vs all others. I do feel like most others, including Looker, are niche players with none really gaining enough market share to make the top two sweat. Microsoft's strength is really the completeness of platform (data+viz) where Tableau has been trying bolt on pieces over time.
I think it's too bad that there isn't more competition as I feel like innovation in BI is stalling. Overall BI is becoming commoditized while adjacent Data Engineering and Data Science/Analytics are surging.
Some of the up-and-comers have interesting approaches. I'd like to see more around.
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Multi-channel BI (portal, push, stream)
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BI/Data API interfaces (not strictly reporting/viz)
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GraphDB support
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More robust cross datasource joining (more like data federation including db, nosql/json, api)
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Real-time reporting
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Context aware embedded BI
As a side note I find it sad that MicroStrategy is investing $300M in Bitcoin. It's like seeing your Uncle get hooked on meth.
More on reddit.comOur team compiled 11 years of Gartner magic quadrant to better visualized the rise and fall of BI Tools
Gartner Magic Quadrant Feb 2021
I first started using PBI a little more than 4 years ago after using Tableau for a year. It felt a little rough and unrefined. Now, it feels like a fully capable, refined, and mature tool. Really impressive what they have done.
More on reddit.comInsights from Gartner's 2021 Magic Quadrant for BI Platforms - daylight between Power BI and the other BI vendors
But, putting our cap aside for a moment, it’s worth noting that Power BI can only be deployed in Azure. This limits your ability to use services from other cloud providers, and also potentially creates high switching costs.
Power BI does offer the On-Premise "Power BI Report Server". It's just SQL Server Reporting Services re-skinned with the ability to host Power BI reports as well as Paginated Reports, so it's limited, but it's there. Free if you buy premium, too.
More on reddit.comVideos
Read the report here: https://www.qlik.com/us/gartner-magic-quadrant-business-intelligence
Thoughts on the results?
Microsoft and Tableau vs all others. I do feel like most others, including Looker, are niche players with none really gaining enough market share to make the top two sweat. Microsoft's strength is really the completeness of platform (data+viz) where Tableau has been trying bolt on pieces over time.
I think it's too bad that there isn't more competition as I feel like innovation in BI is stalling. Overall BI is becoming commoditized while adjacent Data Engineering and Data Science/Analytics are surging.
Some of the up-and-comers have interesting approaches. I'd like to see more around.
-
Multi-channel BI (portal, push, stream)
-
BI/Data API interfaces (not strictly reporting/viz)
-
GraphDB support
-
More robust cross datasource joining (more like data federation including db, nosql/json, api)
-
Real-time reporting
-
Context aware embedded BI
As a side note I find it sad that MicroStrategy is investing $300M in Bitcoin. It's like seeing your Uncle get hooked on meth.
The companies that list links to the Magic Quadrant have all paid a lot of money for this privilege. They also pay a lot of money for cross-marketing services that Gartner and the many brands (Capterra, SoftwareAdvice, GetApp, and more) they own provide.
Second, they make money by writing about hot topics like AI, ML, Big Data, etc., even when only 1% of BI implementations utilize these. Boring old BI best-practices (e.g. user adoption, semantic modeling, etc.) do not get much clicks.
With that, I do think the analysis is pretty good. Microsoft's ability to execute is solid, however I would say it's not visionary - there aren't many/any features that many of the traditional BI providers have. Tableau is awesome, but not "enterprise-BI", meaning there are few medium+ organizations that can use it as their main BI tool. Qlik has excellent ability to execute, but is really old tech under the covers. They were bought by private equity firms that are milking it's value until they retire it - oldest trick in the private equity book. Having used Yellowfin, it should probably be higher. Oracle should be dead last. IBM should be lower on ability to execute, but much higher on completeness of vision. One of my main critiques is that IBM Cognos tries to do too much, making it inaccessible to regular users.