Qlik takes over Podium Data

Qlik has announced the acquisition of Podium Data to expand Qlik’s mission, moving beyond analytics to being provider of solutions that democratize data for every user to create a more data literate world.

Enterprise data strategies have evolved to rely heavily on the creation of data lakes. However, customers are realizing that these and other data sources aren’t designed to easily and quickly deliver data to the business user. In many instances, data lakes have only increased customer data complexity and management headaches. According to Gartner, “Through 2018, 90% of deployed data lakes will be rendered useless, as they’re overwhelmed with information assets captured for uncertain use-cases.” (Gartner. Derive Value From Data Lakes Using Analytics Design Patterns. 26 September 2017)

Qlik believes an organization’s analytics strategy is only optimized when paired with a strong data strategy, and yet most analytics vendors are falling short on delivering in this area. Customers lack understanding of even what data they already have, and are left struggling to maximize their data’s value. Qlik’s multi-cloud capabilities and upcoming Associative Big Data Index are designed to help customers tap into all their data, explore massive data volumes in any direction and discover new insights. With Podium Data, Qlik will provide customers with an expanding enterprise data management solution to transform their raw data into a governed, analytics-aware information resource. Together, Podium Data and Qlik will help break down bottle necks and silos inherent in disparate enterprise data environments, and expand the value of data throughout the enterprise.

Podium Data helps customers transform the passive data lake into a self-service data resource that efficiently manages data processes, reduces data prep time, and delivers data faster into the hands of business users. Enterprise customers such as Astellas, TD Bank, Charter Communications and Cigna have relied on Podium Data to pivot to an agile data management strategy, delivering consumable information for business users through automated sourcing, cataloging, profiling, preparation and publishing of data at scale, whether it be in the cloud or on-premise.

Mike Capone, Qlik CEO, says, “We work closely with customers to build an analytics strategy that transforms many parts of their business with Qlik, and yet there is still huge untapped value in much of their data. You can’t be a leader in Business Intelligence and ignore the complexities of data management. Acquiring Podium Data furthers our goal of being the partner to handle a customer’s most difficult data challenges, driving both their analytics and data strategy.”

Paul Barth, CEO of Podium Data, says, “The promise of big data to deliver value to the full enterprise hinges on the ability to organize data and makes it analytics ready. We’re excited to be joining Qlik to marry our data management capabilities with the analytics leader to bring data to life for every enterprise user.”

Podium Data will be the foundation for a Qlik data hub offering, encompassing a comprehensive set of capabilities to better manage, understand and act on data. Qlik envisions a data hub to be more than just data storage, preparation and gathering of metadata. Businesses demand a dynamic ecosystem for enterprise data producers and consumers, including smart data catalog for all data assets, regardless of source or location.