Extensive QlikView coverage from a big fan and reseller
David Raab is a reseller and great fan of QlikTech’s QlikView. His recent lengthy post about the product (I hesitate to call it “detailed” only because he rightly complains that QlikTech is in fact stingy with technical detail) is positive enough to have been recommended by the company itself. Specifically, it was cited in the comment thread to my recent post on QlikTech, where David himself also addressed some of my questions.
But of course, no technology is perfect, not even one as great as David thinks QlikView is. In particular, the idea that QlikView automagically gives you access to all your information, without any prior work, is refuted by David’s comment from the link above:
Thanks Juan. We’ve taken a similar approach. Moving the data from its original source to the QVD format can be quite time-consuming for large volumes, so it is best to do it just once. Similarly, doing calculations and other data preparation in scripts and saving the results is often critical to producing quick response for end-users, since it minimizes the amount of time spent waiting for on-the-fly calculations. I haven’t personally needed to build applications that reload from QVDs on-demand, but can easily envision situations where this would also be an important strategy to ensure adequate performance.
In fairness, QlikTech and its fans never claimed that deployment was instantaneous; rather, it takes a few weeks or months. Surely much of that time goes to exactly the kind of pre-massaging David describes.
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[…] to not just tell a story, but to give simple and persuasive reasons why it is true. David Raab is a huge fan of QlikTech’s QlikView, as both a reseller and blogger. Precisely because he is such a great advocate, he is frustrated by […]
Hi Curt,
In point of fact, I am no longer a QlikView reseller, a change that had nothing to do with the product or the company. I do plead guilty to being a “great fan” and a “blogger”. But I think the more relevant credentials are 20+ years as a technology consultant, analyst and journalist, including extensive coverage of many analytical database technologies.
Nor am I “frustrated” by QlikTech’s lack of technical specificity. I said they can be “maddeningly vague”, but the only people being maddened are those who want such information. I have enough hands-on experience with the product to know what it can and can’t do. Once you know that, the internal details are irrelevant.
QlikView is exactly “as great as David thinks it is”, and no greater. Like every product, it has its strengths and weaknesses. But you’ll only learn those by working with it and talking to others who have.
David
Sorry, David.
So what IS your affiliation with the firm you identify as a QlikView reseller in the disclaimer to your August 3 post?
Thanks,
CAM
Client X Client was a partnership between myself and another person. I have left the firm, although it continues under my former partner’s management. My own company, Raab Associates Inc., is not a QlikView reseller.