Somewhat in response to a recent article from Gartner that put the BI space firmly in the hands of Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM, some users started a poll over at LinkedIn (See it here, account required). The results are interesting, with Spotfire coming out way in front.
Now, a few things to note first:
- It’s a self-selected sample.. Voters already had LinkedIn accounts and were part of a Data Visualization group
- There were only 5 options (the 4 shown and “Other”), so of course people will gravitate to those 4.
It’s interesting to see the difference in opinion. I think Gartner is probably right, simply because of the old adage “Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM”. Smaller companies have more flexible and agile tools, but big business likes buying from big business, so IBM & Microsoft rule those markets.
There are also some interesting demographics to note:
- Younger people seemed to gravitate to Tableau. I would bet that’s due to Tableau’s recent success in creating a powerful and easy web-embed friendly visualization system that keeps cropping up all over the internet. Exposure is great advertising.
- Most of the people picking “Other” were older “Managers”, somewhat reinforcing my point above. The folks with the money are going elsewhere.
- Spotfire, the clear out-and-out winner of the poll had 3/4th of their votes from “all other” people, meaning their job description didn’t fit into the usual suspects. This could indicate a large freelancer base. (I originally thought students, but the age is a bit high)
If you don’t have a LinkedIn account, I’ve included the entire fully-expanded chart after the break (Showing demographic breakdowns for all 5 choices).
The key thing to consider when talking about data visualization is that there are a number of companies that specialize in just that one area. You also want to ask yourself: What is that I want to achieve with data visualization? What do I want to solve/improve from a business standpoint? What features/functionality are critical to the initiative? This will help narrow down the list of vendors, if you are looking for consultation/assistance in presenting the data then this will narrow it down even further.
Other companies not mentioned in the report that specialize in the data visualization sphere are Dundas Data Visualization, iDashboard, Telerik, ComponentArt, ChartFX, Infragistics, FusionCharts, etc.
Hope this helps.
Hi Andrei,
I sent you a private email with the details.
-Ralph Winters
@Ralph:
Hi Ralph: can you point – specifically – what you saw on Web? Or you just saying it generically, without any specific remark about this specific poll? By the way, 1340 people voted on THAT Linkedin Poll, see it here: http://linkd.in/f5SRw9 about Data Visualization tools, which is statistically significant as a reflection of the fact that the Data Visualization market has 3 clear leaders (probably at least a generation ahead of all other competitors: Spotfire, Tableau and Qlikview). Spotfire is a top vote getter: it got 450 votes (34%), Tableau 308 (23%), Qlikview 305 (23%), PowerPivot/Excel2010 got 146 votes (11%, more then all “Others” DV Tools) and all Others DV tools got 131 votes (10%).
Andrei, author of THAT poll.
With regards to this poll: Whenever I see comments on the web like “LinkedIn users: (vendor) needs your votes! Weigh in on this poll and make us the Data Visualization tool of choice”, I will automatically discount the poll results. I know this is hard to control sometimes if you are polling. Too bad there is this kind of politicking going on.
-Ralph Winters
This was a very interesting post. However I do think it is a little hard to say which is the best for visualization, since I imagine most people would be loyal to the one they or their company uses. Also, each company has different visualization needs – some might choose Tableau for cost of implementation, Qlikview for memory capacity or lesser known solutions like Bime on the basis of data connectivity (online and on premise) or design. But all in all, an interesting poll nonetheless!
@ Andrei Thanks for stopping by to comment! 🙂
I agree that Gartner tends to publish what keeps their paying customers happy. No Fortune500 company wants to hear that the multi-million dollar data analysis package they just bought happens to be falling behind in the market. I tend to believe that Tableau and the other options you pick are definitely the best products available right now, but lack the “brand recognition” of companies like IBM or Microsoft.
But if Tableau keeps signing big customers like Zynga and CBS, they’re going to find themselves in the “Big Boy’s League” quickly.
@ Anna Lopez:
Anna: I am author of the poll, and there is no any indication that respondents are TIBCO employers and LinkedIn providing full anonimity for voters/poll takers.
@ Randall Hand:
Randall: Thanks for you comments! LinkedIn allows me only 5 options, it is why I have those 4 choices (whom are data visualization leaders in my expert opinion) and Others for rest of the field, whom I actually perceive as at least one generation behind.
In terms of Gartner, I watch Gartner’s so called Magic Quadrant for BI Platforms” for many years and they are clearly do not understand Data Visualization space and determined to please their paying customers. Gartner is a clear misjudge in “BI”, I always laugh when they publish their “articles”.
@ Anna Lopez No, but honestly I’m not sure that kind of information is actually available. Can you see a list of who submitted a response?
Hey Randall – Did you notice that a huge number (somewhere around 1/3) of the respondents are Spotfire/Tibco employees? Makes the whole survey suspect.