I was checking Google Trends the other day, and was surprised to find out that the search term Power Query is still getting high momentum (Given the fact the name is no longer seen in the user interface of Excel 2016, or in Power BI). More intriguing is that Power Query is now beating Power Pivot, and has a much higher growth rate.
Click this image to see the results in Google Trends
Does it mean that Power Query is going to be much more common tool? What do you think?
And PowerBI:
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=Power%20Pivot,PowerPivot,Power%20Query,powerbi
I suspect much of it is because Power Query doesn’t have Intellisense at all so you need to know the exact syntax to use, and virtually none of its functions resemble Excel, where as Power Pivot/DAX does have Intellisense and many functions are close or the same names where they do the same thing.
I am constantly googling for Power Query terms since the UI is of no help at all.
For the following search watch what happens when you add the search term Power BI instead of PowerBI…
Now that I think about it, that’s probably the same trend for my individual Google searches too. I don’t look up as many DAX functions as I do M these days.
Power Query is an AMAZING tool, reports are nice and everything, but with power query ive built tools saving weeks of yearly labour in hours. PQ-pros can be useful in almost ANY business.
@Gil – The reason for popularity of PQ is the PQ Team – they are fantastic – They are the fist team inside MS to follow an Agile Development methodology – they also listen and respond to end user queries and try and implement suggested improvements
PP is a typical product from a typical MS team – with a take it or leave it attitude -not open to changes – updates happening once in a blue moon
So no surprise that PQ is more popular than PP
It would have been even more popular if the PQ engine was first updated in Excel and then in PBI Desktop rather than the other way round.
Add “tableau” to the Google trend comparison for a sobering insight.
“Tableau Software” vs. “Power BI” is more realistic, and I suspect that many MSFT fans are using bing, so the comparison is biased 😉
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=%2Fm%2F02s9k80,Power%20BI,Tableau
I think there are a few things driving this:
#1 Power Query is more broadly useful tool than Power Pivot – powerful yet easy data shaping that people need to do every day for operational tasks as well as analysis
#2 Power BI users are slowly discovering that there is a lot of power in their Query Editor, yet it is largely glossed over in PBI courses and doco. I always tell my PBI clients to google for Power Query
#3 The replacement “names” for this component have been vague where as “Power Query” is a great product/component name – very snappy and conveys what it is for.
#4 DAX is obscure and difficult to work with for most real-world problems, so a lot of smart people give up and get the results they want by manipulating data in PQ where they can debug step-by-step