Would you like high growth now and profits later, or profits now and lower growth?

The answer for business intelligence software firm Qlik Technologies (Nasdaq: QLIK) is clear: It's all about growth now and profits will come later.

In the just-reported fourth quarter, Qlik saw its sales soar by 32% year over year to $81.4 million, handily beating analyst expectations. At the same time, non-GAAP earnings came in below Street targets at $0.15 per share. But I love what I hear as motivation behind that miss: "The decrease in GAAP and non-GAAP net income was primarily a result of accelerated hiring and associated employee-related costs, as well as lead generation costs during the fourth quarter of 2010."

Clarifying the matter further, CFO Bill Sorenson said, "We've been focusing very much on revenue-generating staff, and we clearly have been bringing in additional resources to support that. So you'll see headcount continue to increase in the first quarter."

In other words, Qlik is investing in its future, big time. Management is willing to miss earnings targets now in order to keep the fires under the steam engine burning as hotly as possible. That spirit certainly befits this official Rule Breakers recommendation, and the idea is not far removed from the way Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) is sacrificing profits to build up a solid library of streaming video licenses. Invest now, profit later.

With revenue growth like that, enterprise interest in Qlik's technology is obviously high. The company's QlikView product was designed for ease of use with heavy integration into mobile infrastructures, including tablet-ready apps for the Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPad, Android's new wave of Honeycomb tablets, and of course the suit-and-tie PlayBook from Research In Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM).

All things considered, Qlik seems poised to continue stealing market share from entrenched business intelligence leaders IBM (NYSE: IBM) Cognos, SAP (NYSE: SAP) Business Logic, and the eponymous suite from MicroStrategy (Nasdaq: MSTR). Management is doing all the right things to exploit its top-shelf product portfolio, and the market has responded by doubling Qlik's share price since the IPO in July. I don't think it'll stop there, and fellow Fool Tim Beyers concurs.

This breakthrough technology is changing the face of business. Only a select few companies provide the tools companies need to analyze massive amounts of data. A free report titled "The Only Stock You Need to Profit from the NEW Technology Revolution" unveils one of the few stocks poised to keep up with Qlik in this market. Download it right now -- it's free!