Main Line tech stock keeps rising

Shares of Qlik Technologies Inc. (pronounced "click") have jumped, from $10 at the business-info software maker's initial public stock offering in July, to over $23 Wednesday, even as other new stocks have lagged the market.

Chief executive Lars Bjork, a Swedish engineer, says he's been spending "25 to 30 percent of my working day" coping with makeup artists at CNBC and questions from pension-fund investors as he pushes the company's line to new and prospective shareholders. "When your company goes public, you become a public figure too," he told me.

Already the stock has exceeded targets set by analysts at JPMorgan, Citigroup, Jeffries & Co. and Stifel Nicolaus in late August. Morgan's John DiFucci, in a report last month, says Qlik exploits computers' "faster and cheaper memory, multi-core processors and higher bandwidth" to sell cheaper, easier-to-use business information software so salespeople and engineers can come up with rapid cost, price and customer data, compared to rival systems bolted onto complex "enterprise software" systems by much larger software makers like IBM, SAP and Oracle. (Qlik is located here because it counted locally-based former SAP America Inc. and Siebel Systems executives Paul Wahl and Alex Ott among its earlier backers.)

DiFucci expects Big Software will eventually make its data Qlik-like easy-to-use, but for now the dominant firms are stuck with the "classic innovator's dilemma:" Their expensive, complex, "highly profitable" enterprise software systems are "disrupted" by easy-to-use solutions like Qlik, and they won't respond "unless they are forced to. With $157 million in revenues last year," a drop in the IT bucket, "QlikTech does not provide a significant threat... yet."

Anyone who's tried to pay a bill using enterprise software they don't use every day can appreciate this: "We want our end users to have an experience similar to Google or Skype or Facebook," Bjork told me. "I should be able to pick it up, understand it, feel in control." Users are urged to download personal copies of the software at Qlik's website, free, and pay licensing fees only when they share the data they used it to generate.

When Bjork's not telling stories to investors, he's hiring engineers and sales managers to boost his 600-member worldwide staff, including a 50-person headquarters office at the Radnor Financial Center. He's seeking more space from landlord Brandywine Realty Trust.

Qlik buys its legal help in Boston and in the software center of Raleigh, N.C., but uses the Philadelphia office of Ernst & Young as its auditor, and is looking for another accountant to handle regulatory compliance. Qlik does its research and development at Lund, in Bjork's  native Sweden, a univesrity center that's also home to Sony, Ericcson and Astra Zeneca labs. But Bjork says he's also outsourcing development of new applications for Android, iPad and other mobile systems, which he expects will continue to replace PCs, laptops and cell phones as the business tool of choice.

Qlik looks like it's got a big red acquisition target painted on its headquarters. But especially if the share price keeps rising, it may be Bjork who does the buying. "We're looking for complimentary technologies," he told me. "We're not likely to make a big acquistion. But we are looking for teams and skill sets." Meanwhile he's rolling out a new version of Qlik every year and a half. "Version 10 will be out this fall. It's even easier to use; simplicity is a mantra for us. We've included a lot more apps... cool features I can't comment on." Meanwhile "our team is working on version 11, and looking at 12."