Thomas correctly identified several missing features in QDA Miner, such as
fuzzy searches and placeholders in the text retrieval function, and support
for multimedia coding, as well as invivo coding and a non hierarchical
codebook.  I would add to this list modeling tools (diagrams) and also
extensive linking capabilities like those found in Nvivo.

This is a very first version and some of those features will likely be
implemented in the next version (e.g. thesaurus search, true hierarchical
codebook, etc.).

However, I would have to disagree with Thomas when he wrote:

>QDA Miner does not explore relationships; neither does any other CAQDAS.
>You will need to come up with some hypotheses about these relationships,

I think this is one of the unique features of QDA Miner. Many graphical and
statistical exploratory tools have been included in the software.  Those
are the same tools used in data mining and text mining applications
(justifying the "Miner" part of the product name).  You can cluster all
your codes and obtain dendrograms, concept maps (using multidimensional
scaling) and proximity plots to discover proximity among codes, you can
apply the same tools on your cases and figure out which cases are the most
similar and those that are different from each others.  Several other tools
also allow you to explore relationship between any other variables (what
Nvivo would call attributes) and coding made (you can create large crosstab
looking at relationship between codes and categories of a numerical or
categorical variables, apply statistical tests, create a correspondence
plot or a heatmap to further explore those relationships.  You may also
explore code sequences. With QDA Miner, you don't have to come up with
hypothesis in order to test for their existence.

To simplify somewhat the difference I perceive between my software and most
other ones, I would say that because of the lack of invivo coding and
linking capabilities, QDA miner may be less able to support an inductive
coding process and may be more appropriate for predefine codebooks or an
approach of coding where changes to codebooks are more cautious or
parsimonious. The fact that QDA Miner is one of the only QDA software that
performs inter-coder reliability analysis is also an indication of this. On
the other hand, when it comes to analysis of coding, QDA Miner is less
deductive and much more inductive.  It is not oriented toward the testing
of hypothesis but toward an inductive discovery of existing relationships.
Of course, it is an oversimplication and people many still use QDA Miner to
test hypothesis, and Nvivo or Atlas-ti to explore new relationships.

Thomas also mentioned the fact that QDA Miner had a direct link to Simstat
(our statistical software), but as he also mentioned, all other software
provide an easy way to export data to Excel or SPSS.  I think what is more
significant for qualitative researchers is the link to WordStat.  Other
software may provide lists of words associated with some coded segments,
more recently MaxQDA introduced a text analysis module that goes a little
bit further. Qualrus introduced a machine learning tool that involved a
form of text analysis. However, WordStat provides a comprehensive content
analysis and text mining tool that allows one to perform advance text
analysis on documents in QDA Miner projects, on segments tagged with
selected codes, and  even compare text among segments assigned to different
codes.  Is there another QDA program that allows you to do all this?  I
don't know.  It this something useful?  For some users it will be.

I do believe that the level of integration between qualitative and
quantitative analysis we have been able to achieve with QDA Miner (with
companion products like Simstat and WordStat) is higher than what you will
find in other QDA software.  This is the choice we have made.  I'm sure
that for many researchers such an integration is not important and that for
some of them, it is even suspicious. If your interest is solely qualitative
data analysis, you may find this first version of QDA Miner less powerful
than other more mature products like Nvivo or Atlas-ti.  We will likely
improve the product in a near future, but it is not our intention to
replicate all features found in other QDA software and support all the
various ways one can do qualitative data analysis.

Normand Peladeau
Provalis Research
www.simstat.com