JMP vs. Microsoft BI (MSBI)

Many organizations have seen their analytical capabilities, and the results from them, plateau. Of these, we've observed, that most of them didn't appreciate that they could do (even) better. These companies should definitely consider JMP. Any company that is research-based can benefit from accelerating their research, learning more in less time, effort and cost, with JMP's tools. Basically, any organization that is hungry enough for improvement to seek out better ways is suitable for JMP. Those who are happy with their current performance are not likely to consider the changes, though they were not major impediments by our clients, required.

Microsoft BI is well suited for Stream analytics, easy data integration, report creation and UI/UX designs (limited but what all available are great ones) Microsoft BI may be less appropriate for handling huge number of datasets and difficult queries. It may also be difficult for a company with heavy data.

• Graphs are more detail-oriented and contain statistical inferences.
• Everything is drag and drop. Pretty much easy to use and handle and also to learn.
• Importing and exporting the results are easy and they can be attached with any other tool for processing.

Incentivized

• The layout of Power BI is very intuitive. Someone that is familiar with Excel and working with Charts and Graphs in that environment will find the learning curve a rather short one to start using Power BI.
• I like the way Power BI fits an assortment of users and how the functionality that you engage is replicated in Excel, that being Power Query and Power Pivot. So what you learn in one tool can be readily applied towards the other which allows you to more effectively apply your training.
• I appreciate how Microsoft is working to develop tools that go a long ways to empowering the end user. Prior to Power BI I would have had to consult with a "BI" professional to develop a dashboard. With Power BI I don't have to consult with anyone, I can work to put together the dash board I want and using a tool set that is really robust and allows me to engage an enormous amount of data. It's provides a great deal of flexibility and the types of data I can connect to.
• Updates...Microsoft is working diligently to keep Power BI current with monthly updates. They do a really good job of listening to the end user, if there is functionality not currently present just give them a month or so.
• Just to be clear, even though it's easy to get going right out of the gate with Power BI it provides plenty of opportunities to create some really sophisticated reporting solutions. With DAX in Power Pivot and M language in Power Query, you are provided with plenty of head room to do some really amazing things in Power BI.
• Training...there are resources across the web for learning and growing your skills and Power BI. And what's even better is the majority of those resources are free.
• Data engagement, when presenting the data to the end user Power BI goes a long way to allowing that end user to engage the data and begin to identify root cause by simply interacting with the graph/chart/data set. It allows for really fluid engagement. Prior to Power BI so many times during the presentation of data we often times ended the engagement with that data with more questions than what were answered. With Power BI, more often than not, the end user is able to get answers to the questions by simply clicking on the data in the graph/chart/dataset to see the details. This tool really does have the capacity to make you look like a rock star.

Incentivized

• Loading a large amount of data is very tedious as it takes a lot of time and it crashes very frequently.
• I dislike the limited options they have in terms of statistical models or analysis tools.
• Variable value designation is a big problem in JMP, the software fails to recognize the type of data when it comes to the numeric value.

Incentivized

• The race to perfect gathering of Non-Traditional datasets is on-going; with Microsoft arguably not the leader of the pack in this category.
• Licensing options for PowerBI visualizations may be a factor. I.e. if you need to implement B2C PowerBI visualizations, the cost is considerably high especially for startups.
• Some clients are still resistant putting their data on the cloud, which restricts lots of functionality to Power BI.

Incentivized

I've mentioned this earlier, but the licensing agreements are very prohibitive. I work with a company where my role has become less and less doing my own analytics and more and more trying to help other people in that role. As we are bringing more people "up to speed" it's hard to justify licenses for 2-3 people when they aren't full time, Six Sigma black belts just looking at stats all day. A floating license option would make this a no-brainer, since these people could continue their other work and add JMP usage as they grow their skills, but this is not something JMP/SAS has offered.

Microsoft BI is fundamental to our suite of BI applications. That being said, Northcraft Analytics is focused on delighting our customers, so if the underlying factors of our decision change, we would choose to re-write our BI applications on a different stack. Luckily, mathematics are the fundamental IP of our technology... and is portable across all BI platforms for the foreseeable future.

The GUI interface makes it easier to generate plots and find statistics without having to write code. The JSL scripting is a bit of a steep learning curve but does give you more ability to customize your analysis. Overall, I would recommend JMP as a good product for overall usability.

Incentivized

The Microsoft BI tools have great usability for both developers and end users alike. For developers familiar with Visual Studio, there is little learning curve. For those not, the single Visual Studio IDE means not having to learn separate tools for each component. For end-users, the web interface for SSRS is simple to navigate with intuitive controls. For ad-hoc analysis, Excel can connect directly to SSAS and provide a pivot table like experience which is familiar to many users. For database development, there is beginning to be some confusion, as there are now three tool choices (VS, SSMS, Azure Data Studio) for developers. I would like to see Azure Data Studio become the superset of SSMS and eventually supplant it.

Incentivized

Reports are stable and always avaiable when needed.

SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) can drag at times. We created two report servers and placed them under an F5 load balancer. This configuration has worked well. We have seen sluggish performance at times due to the Windows Firewall.

The helpful tips are great for new users. I am always able to find solutions to a tool I am working with through the hep section. And my area has a users group that meets each quarter to share ideas and view upcoming JMP revisions.

Incentivized

While support from Microsoft isn't necessarily always best of breed, you're also not paying the price for premium support that you would on other platforms. The strength of the stack is in the ecosystem that surrounds it. In contrast to other products, there are hundreds, even thousands of bloggers that post daily as well as vibrant user communities that surround the tool. I've had much better luck finding help with SQL Server related issues than I have with any other product, but that help doesn't always come directly from Microsoft.

This training was more directed toward what the product was capable of rather than actual programming.

I have not used your online training. I use JMP manuals and SAS direct help.

I have used on-line training from Microsoft and from Pragmatic Works. I would recommend Pragmatic Works as the best way to get up to speed quickly, and then use the Microsoft on-line training to deep dive into specific features that you need to get depth with.

We are a consulting firm and as such our best resources are always billing on client projects. Our internal implementation has weaknesses, but that's true for any company like ours. My rating is based on the product's ease of implementation.

We actually use both JMP and IBM SPSS, but I think JMP's complexity lends itself to more in-depth statistical analyses. SPSS is designed for that as well, but we tend to use it more for quicker analyses, and we have found that JMP is far more powerful.

We use Microsoft BI because our organization has all of its software in the Microsoft ecosystem. It just made sense to utilize Microsoft BI because it can so seamlessly connect to all of the other Microsoft tools and data sources that we were using before. We often find that more people have experience with Microsoft BI than other tools that we looked at due to its popularity and widespread use within other organizations.

Incentivized

• JMP has resulted in literally millions of dollars in ROI due to identification of correctable errors.
• Use of JMP control charts JMP has greatly simplified and improved interpretation of Lean, FMEA, and PDSA type analyses.
• Use of JMP has enable the testing and subsequent selection of 'best practices' saving uncounted hours in false starts based on 'collective experience'.
• The down side is that JMP is not a 'magic box', one still has to take care in applying the tools properly. Moreover, time-consuming approaches using JMP may still be the 'order of the day', because the service (even power user) is unaware of significant shortcuts available for free on the JMP community website.

Incentivized

• Profit increase due to MSBI output and a better understanding of multiple functions other than cost.
• Data compatibility will be improved, and MSBI will have the opportunity to handle the API more effectively. The MSBI ETL stack works well with relational databases, but with cloud-based data sources emerging, non-relational data sources should be supported.
• Save time interpreting data. Our analytics capabilities have helped our clients understand complex data with simple reports. Thus, it facilitated decision-making.

Incentivized