Will Allow Easier, Less Costly Deployment of High-Value Business Intelligence Enterprise-Wide
MCLEAN, Va., (April 22, 2002) –
MicroStrategy® Incorporated (NASDAQ: MSTR), a leading worldwide provider of business intelligence software, today announced the availability on April 26th of a new version of its award-winning business intelligence platform. MicroStrategy said the new platform, called MicroStrategy 7i, represents a breakthrough for the industry as it is the first truly integrated, Web-based platform that puts an “unprecedented range of user functionality” into a single business intelligence technology.
With MicroStrategy 7i, enterprises can now standardize on one business intelligence platform and deploy high-value business intelligence enterprise-wide — generating higher levels of productivity and efficiency than ever before. Customers, partners and suppliers will also benefit, the company added, as MicroStrategy 7i’s architecture greatly facilitates the implementation of business intelligence extranets.
Business Intelligence Consolidation = Lower Costs
With major innovations in Web-based reporting and the integration of Intelligent Cubes(TM), MicroStrategy indicated its enterprise customers are finding they can replace multiple query, reporting and OLAP tools with the single MicroStrategy 7i platform. This consolidation lowers their procurement, development, and administration costs and provides a single version of business intelligence across the enterprise.
Technical Innovations Extend Bottom-Line Benefits of Business Intelligence Enterprise Wide
MicroStrategy identified five major areas of technical innovations for MicroStrategy 7i: Intelligent Cubes, Windows on the Web, Information Collaboration, Portable Analytical Modules, and Portal Integration and Web Services:
Intelligent Cubes
MicroStrategy 7i is the first technology to combine the speed and interactivity of multi-dimensional OLAP analysis with the full analytical power and depth of relational OLAP. MicroStrategy 7i accomplishes this through Intelligent Cubes(TM), which are user-created multi-dimensional cubes that operate within MicroStrategy Intelligence ServerTM. In MicroStrategy 7i, creating an Intelligent Cube(TM) is as easy as creating a report. MicroStrategy 7i is the first business intelligence platform to seamlessly combine access to terabyte databases with the speed of multi-dimensional cubes, enabling reporting, ad hoc query, OLAP, statistical analysis, and ROLAP from one interface.
Windows on the Web
MicroStrategy 7i’s new Web interface provides the speed and features of a Windows client, including drag-and-drop report formatting, drop-down menu bars, and right-mouse click drill-down, without ActiveX or Java applet downloads. MicroStrategy Web users can also build their own reports, design reports for other users and interactively analyze data, all through a secure zero-footprint Web client that is completely transparent to firewalls.
Information Collaboration
MicroStrategy 7i is designed to simplify information sharing – and is the only platform to provide a full capability to both create and share business intelligence insight. Users can analyze reports by drilling, pivoting, sorting, filtering, and subtotaling, and then can email reports to other users instantly with “Send Now”; schedule reports for regular delivery; publish reports to their workgroups; and export reports in Excel, PDF or HTML formats.
Portable Analytical Modules
A breakthrough in packaged analytic applications, MicroStrategy’s Portable Analytic Modules contain predefined, business-oriented reports and business workflows – with the additional ability to be fully customized and “ported” to existing databases and data warehouses. Unlike other packaged applications, MicroStrategy 7i Portable Analytic Modules are not tied to a pre-determined database schema. Instead, MicroStrategy’s powerful logical modeling tool allows Portable Analytic Modules to be “wired up” to existing databases, eliminating costly data replication and ETL (extract, transform, and load) investments.
Portal Integration and Web Services
With the introduction of the MicroStrategy 7i Portal Integration KitTM, companies now have pre-packaged connectors to quickly include business intelligence into portal products like Epicentric, Hummingbird®, and Plumtree®. Similarly, with MicroStrategy 7i Web Services Development KitTM , customers can access any MicroStrategy function through standard Web Services protocols (SOAP, UDDI) and techniques.
For more details about MicroStrategy 7i, click on Web link to one-page fact sheet: http://www.microstrategy.com/7i_factsheet.asp.
Leading Customers & Industry Analysts Praise MicroStrategy 7i
Ace Hardware:
“We are very impressed by MicroStrategy 7i’s new Web interface,” said Brian Smetana, Business Analyst at Ace Hardware. “The direction of the technology is in line with our business strategy, enabling us to deploy our business intelligence applications faster and more broadly across the enterprise.”
Best Buy:
“Best Buy originally chose MicroStrategy as a reporting standard because of its robust enterprise-class infrastructure that allows us to run over 100,000 reports a morning,” said Randy Mattran, IS Leader of Business Intelligence for Best Buy Co., Inc. “We are excited about MicroStrategy 7i, because the dramatic interface and usability enhancements will increase acceptance by our business customers.”
Premier:
“MicroStrategy 7i delivers power, functionality and control securely to users across our enterprise — analytics to advanced users, extensive reporting functionality to high-level users, and flexibility and control over the application environment to administrators,” said Todd Wilkes, Director of Applications Development at Premier.
State of Tennessee:
“MicroStrategy 7i will help the State of Tennessee to better manage financial information leading to efficiencies that will save both time and money,” said Sherrie Benn, Data Warehouse Consultant at the State of Tennessee.
Henry Morris, VP for Applications and Information Access, IDC:
“The value of a business intelligence architecture is dependent on the number and variety of analytic applications it supports. MicroStrategy 7i, with its powerful ROLAP and Web reporting capabilities, significantly increases the range of applications its customers can run. The net effect will be to extend the benefits of business intelligence to far more users across the enterprise.”
Nigel Pendse, Lead Author of The OLAP Report (http://www.olapreport.com/):
“MicroStrategy has taken a great step forward in improving the interactivity of its Web interface, which is now one of the best of the true zero-footprint, browser-independent OLAP Web implementations. The new high speed server cubes and flexible Web front-end, coupled with MicroStrategy’s traditional power when analyzing large volumes of detailed information, is a compelling combination.”
Bob Moran, Research VP and Managing Director, Data Knowledge and Analytics, The Aberdeen Group:
“Enterprises clearly have been asking for a single BI platform that can serve as an institutional standard for a full spectrum of BI needs, from Query & Reporting and OLAP to static and proactive reporting, MicroStrategy 7i has not only responded with a consolidated architectural platform, but it has delivered pure-Web report creation and formatting capabilities that will give enterprises the facility to answer their questions in the BI style of their choice while maintaining the flexibility to support evolving BI needs.”
Wayne Eckerson, Director of Education and Research, The Data Warehousing Institute:
“To maximize the reach and hence ROI of enterprise-wide deployments, organizations need full-featured pure-Web analytical environments which minimize the amount of end-user training required. MicroStrategy 7i’s Windows-like navigability over the Web, including drag-and-drop and right-click functionality, is a great step in that direction.”
“Enterprise-Class Business Intelligence without High Cost”
“MicroStrategy 7i’s new zero-footprint Web interface provides the richness of Windows business intelligence interfaces, but without dangerous Java or ActiveX downloads,” said Sanju Bansal, MicroStrategy’s Vice-Chairman and COO. “Organizations can now safely deploy a single business intelligence platform for all of their departmental, enterprise, and extranet applications. Unlike competing offerings that force deployment of both Windows and Web interfaces to satisfy all users, thus increasing deployment and administration costs, MicroStrategy 7i’s configurable query, reporting, and OLAP Web interface is designed to support all users from casual report viewers to power analysts.”
Bansal added: “Companies and organizations can now extend high-end business intelligence enterprise-wide without the high cost. That offers them the capabilities to make much fuller use of their data, to gain vital new intelligence from it, and to make proactive decisions that can drive efficiency, productivity and customer relations. With MicroStrategy 7i, we’re demonstrating, once again, that MicroStrategy’s leadership derives from innovation not imitation.”
About MicroStrategy Incorporated
Leadership in a Critical Market: Founded in 1989, MicroStrategy is a worldwide leader in the critical business intelligence software market. Large and small companies alike are harnessing MicroStrategy’s business intelligence software to gain vital insights from their data to help them proactively enhance cost-efficiency, productivity and customer relations and optimize revenue-generating strategies. MicroStrategy’s business intelligence platform offers exceptional capabilities that provide organizations — in virtually all facets of their operations — with user-friendly solutions to their data query, reporting, and advanced analytical needs, and distributes valuable insight on this data to users via Web, wireless, and voice. PC Magazine selected MicroStrategy 7(TM) as the 2001 “Editors’ Choice” for business intelligence software.
Built for the Internet: MicroStrategy 7 is the Scalable Business Intelligence Platform Built for the Internet(TM). Its pure-Web architecture provides Web reporting, security, performance and standards that are critical for Web deployment. Within intranets, MicroStrategy’s products provide employees with information to enable them to make better, more cost-effective business decisions. In extranets, enterprises can use MicroStrategy 7 to build stronger relationships by linking customers and suppliers via the Internet.
Diverse Customer Base: MicroStrategy’s customer base cuts across industry and sector lines, with over 1,500 enterprise-class customers, including Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse, AT&T Wireless Group, Wachovia and GlaxoSmithKline. MicroStrategy also has relationships with over 400 systems integrators and application development and platform partners, including IBM, PeopleSoft, Compaq, Informatica and JD Edwards.
MicroStrategy is listed on Nasdaq under the symbol MSTR. For more information on the company, or to purchase or demo MicroStrategy’s software, please visit MicroStrategy’s Web site at http://www.microstrategy.com.
This press release may include statements that may constitute “forward- looking statements,” including its estimates of future business prospects or financial results and statements containing the words “believe,” “estimate,” “project,” “expect” or similar expressions. Forward-looking statements inherently involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results of MicroStrategy Incorporated and its subsidiaries (collectively, the “Company”) to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Factors that could contribute to such differences include: the possibility that the conditions to the securities class action and shareholder derivative settlement agreements will not be satisfied; the Company’s ability to secure financing for its current operations and long-term plans on acceptable terms; the ability of the Company to implement and achieve widespread customer acceptance of its MicroStrategy 7 software on a timely basis; the Company’s ability to recognize deferred revenue through delivery of products or satisfactory performance of services; the timely release of the MicroStrategy 7i platform; continued acceptance of the Company’s products in the marketplace; the timing of significant orders; delays in the Company’s ability to develop or ship new products; market acceptance of new products; competitive factors; general economic conditions; currency fluctuations and other risks detailed in the Company’s registration statements and periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. By making these forward-looking statements, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these statements for revisions or changes after the date of this release.
MicroStrategy, MicroStrategy Business Intelligence Platform, MicroStrategy 7, MicroStrategy 7i, Scalable Business Intelligence Platform Built for the Internet are either trademarks or registered trademarks of MicroStrategy Incorporated in the United States and certain other countries. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
Marc Brailov
MicroStrategy Incorporated
(703) 770-1670
mbrailov@microstrategy.com
Source: MicroStrategy