micro strategy 9-vs-microsoft

A Comparison White Paper by MicroStrategy

MicroStrategy vs. Microsoft (SQL Server 2008 R2 and Office 2010)

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Patent Information

This product is patented. One or more of the following patents may apply to the product sold herein: U.S. Patent Nos. 6,154,766, 6,173,310, 6,260,050, 6,263,051, 6,269,393, 6,279,033, 6,567,796,

6,587,547, 6,606,596, 6,658,093, 6,658,432, 6,662,195, 6,671,715, 6,691,100, 6,694,316, 6,697,808, 6,704,723, 6,741,980, 6,765,997, 6,768,788, 6,772,137, 6,788,768, 6,798,867, 6,801,910,

6,820,073, 6,829,334, 6,836,537, 6,850,603, 6,859,798, 6,873,693, 6,885,734, 6,940,953, 6,964,012, 6,977,992, 6,996,568, 6,996,569, 7,003,512, 7,010,518, 7,016,480, 7,020,251, 7,039,165,

7,082,422, 7,113,993, 7,127,403, 7,174,349, 7,181,417, 7,194,457, 7,197,461, 7,228,303, 7,260,577, 7,266,181, 7,272,212, 7,302,639, 7,324,942, 7,330,847, 7,340,040, 7,356,758, 7,356,840,

7,415,438, 7,428,302, 7,430,562, 7,440,898, 7,486,780, 7,509,671, 7,516,181, 7,559,048, 7,574,376, 7,617,201, 7,725,811, 7,801,967, 7,836,178, 7,861,161, 7,861,253 and 7,881,443. Other patent

applications are pending.

How to Contact Us

MicroStrategy Incorporated

1850 Towers Crescent Plaza

Tysons Corner, VA 22182

Phone: 1.888.537.8135 Fax: 703.848.8610

E-mail: [email protected]

http://www.microstrategy.com

I. Executive Summary ......................................................................................................................... 4

II. Comparison of MicroStrategy 9 and Microsoft (SQL Server 2008 R2 and Office 2010) ...............

on the Key BI Capabilities ............................................................................................................... 5

1. Delivering More BI with Less IT Effort - MicroStrategy Delivers the Lowest TCO .............................. 7

2. All User Needs through a Single Platform ..................................................................................... 11

3. Self-Service Through a Fast and Intuitive Web Interface ................................................................ 15

4. High Performance at Any Scale .................................................................................................... 19

5. Quick to Implement and Deploy, Easy to Maintain and Administer ............................................... 23

6. Highly Interactive and Flexible Mobile Intelligence ........................................................................ 26

7. Deep Insight through Superior Analytics ...................................................................................... 30

8. Flexible Technology for Departmental to Enterprise BI .................................................................. 32

III. MicroStrategy – A Market Proven, Industrial-Strength Technology .......................................... 35

MicroStrategy vs. Microsoft

4

I. Executive Summary

In the business intelligence (BI) marketplace, MicroStrategy competes vigorously with vendors such as Microsoft. At

first glance, it would seem that companies can use either MicroStrategy 9 or Microsoft to support their reporting

and analysis needs. However, throughout the implementation and maintenance of BI applications, companies are

realizing significant differences in the BI capabilities between MicroStrategy and the less robust and less integrated

BI technologies, such as Microsoft. MicroStrategy’s organically grown architecture delivers superior performance,

scalability, usability, efficiency, and reliability; all of which impact the total cost of ownership, user adoption, and

ultimately the success of the BI project.

As user and business requirements have become more complex, IT budgets nonetheless have come under increasing

pressure. Organizations need to deliver BI solutions in light of expanding user requirements, increasing amounts of

data, and differing data sources with a minimal amount of IT resources. Non-organic BI architectures, like Microsoft,

require higher amounts of IT effort because of the basic nature of integrating disparate BI technologies which leads

to redundant and repetitive administration and the constant development of one-off workarounds. In contrast,

organically-developed BI architectures like MicroStrategy require the minimum amount of IT effort needed to deploy

and maintain BI applications and can empower business people to create their own reports without reliance on

IT personnel.

MicroStrategy 9 offers business users a redefined user interface for a fast and intuitive user experience where

they can access consistent information through secure Web, Microsoft Office, and mobile device interfaces.

MicroStrategy’s advanced analytical capabilities, such as predictive analytics and new in-memory analysis provide

users with fast and deep insight. With MicroStrategy’s scalable architecture and a single metadata, users can

seamlessly navigate from scorecards and dashboards to reports and analysis without being required to open and

close multiple BI tools and navigate dissimilar interfaces.

MicroStrategy 9 is advanced technology that allows companies to support all types of BI applications with a

single technology. MicroStrategy 9 builds on MicroStrategy’s unique strengths at the high-end of BI to extend the

boundaries of performance, scalability, and efficiency of enterprise BI. At the same time, MicroStrategy 9 brings

quick-to-deploy BI technology easily within reach of smaller departmental BI initiatives through features such as multi-

source data access, In-memory ROLAP, and Visual Insight. Just as importantly, MicroStrategy 9 provides a smooth

migration path for islands of departmental BI to merge into a cohesive and consistent enterprise-wide framework.

With MicroStrategy 9, even as departmental BI applications are consolidated into the enterprise-wide framework, the

departments can continue to retain significant autonomy and nimbleness that they enjoyed previously.

For nearly 20 years, MicroStrategy customers have gained an edge over their competitors with fast, agile analysis

using MicroStrategy’s sophisticated technology. Companies and industry analysts widely recognize MicroStrategy for

its administration-friendly architecture, robust security, self-service zero-footprint Web interface, innovative mobile

application platform, and proven user and data scalability.

This document discusses in detail the key differences between MicroStrategy 9 and Microsoft.

5

II. Comparison of MicroStrategy 9 and Microsoft on the Key BI Capabilities

Business intelligence has the power to provide performance feedback and visibility to all people in an organization,

thus enabling businesses to make better decisions every day. However, not all BI technologies deliver on this

promise, falling short on a number of key capabilities demanded of enterprise BI applications. A complete and

efficient BI platform must provide organizations with the following key capabilities:

Key BI Capabilities

1. Delivering More BI with Less IT Effort ...................................................................................................... pg.7

MicroStrategy technology requires far fewer IT personnel for a given amount of BI users because its reusable

metadata is easier to maintain requiring less redundancy, because end users have more self-service capabilities

that offload work from the IT staff, and because it provides a comprehensive suite of administrative tools

requiring less IT administrators. Microsoft report development is IT intensive and provides limited end user

self-service capabilities. Limited metadata object reusability across the entire BI platform results in redundant

development and maintenance efforts. In addition, multiple tools and interfaces and multiple points of

administration and configuration put additional pressure on administrators. Microsoft administrators have fewer

tools that allow them to centrally monitor and manage the BI applications, thus requiring more administrators per

number of end users.

2. All User Needs through a Single Platform ................................................................................................pg.11

MicroStrategy users can access any style of BI via a unified and home grown BI platform. MicroStrategy users

get a single “version of the truth” through interactive Web, Microsoft Office, and mobile device interfaces. On

the other hand, Microsoft’s multiple servers and multiple, non-connected report development tools increase the

likelihood of multiple versions of the truth.

3. Self-Service Through a Fast and Intuitive Web Interface ........................................................................pg.15

To enhance usability, the MicroStrategy Web interface adopts many familiar paradigms including, ribbon toolbars,

accordion controls, control-click multi-select capability, and context-sensitive right-click actions. MicroStrategy’s

next-generation of advanced self-service functionality is designed to provide more control to business users. The

MicroStrategy advanced self-service interface provides incredible speed-of-interactivity, stunning visualizations,

drag-and-drop manipulations, and instant results – thus allowing business users to rapidly go from data to

decisions. Microsoft positions Excel, PowerPivot, and Report Builder as end user self-service tools. These tools

are loosely integrated with the rest of the BI platform and provide only a subset of self-service functionality. As a

result, business users have to typically wait for the IT department to complete their requests.

4. High Performance at Any Scale ................................................................................................................ pg.19

MicroStrategy’s high performance at any scale is possible given its In-memory ROLAP architecture, which

leverages the database for much of its processing. Data joins and analytic calculations are processed in the

database whenever possible. MicroStrategy’s unique multi-pass approach provides the flexibility to answer any

analytical question in the most optimal manner. The Microsoft ROLAP engine provides limited capabilities to

generate multi-pass SQL statements and therefore forces many calculations to be performed in the middle-tier

server. The Microsoft engine is unable to leverage different databases to the fullest extent possible, thus resulting

in unnecessary network and hardware resource utilization.

6

5. Quick to Implement and Deploy, Easy to Maintain and Administer ..................................................... pg.23

MicroStrategy provides organizations a platform that is quick to implement and deploy as well as easy to

maintain and administer. MicroStrategy’s single code base offers the unique advantage of reusable business

logic across the entire platform. MicroStrategy’s single BI server provides efficient, centralized administration for

IT and fewer moving parts which translate into less downtime. On the other hand, Microsoft’s multiple server

installations require multiple points of administration. Microsoft’s lack of reusable metadata results in heavy IT

development and maintenance efforts, and a high total cost of ownership.

6. Highly Interactive and Flexible Mobile Intelligence ............................................................................... pg.26

MicroStrategy Mobile extends BI capabilities on mobile devices well beyond traditional grid and graph reports

and provides exceptional flexibility for creating purpose-built, workflow-driven mobile applications. MicroStrategy

Mobile apps are built using a metadata driven, point-and-click development paradigm, fully utilizing the

MicroStrategy BI platform infrastructure, security, and reusable metadata components. As a result, mobile

applications are faster and easier to create, easier to maintain, and provide the administration efficiencies needed

to deploy to hundreds of thousands of users while providing the industry's lowest total cost of ownership.

Microsoft does not have a well defined Mobile BI strategy and does not provide native applications for the

iPhone, iPad, or Blackberry. Creating and deploying rich Mobile BI applications using Microsoft requires extensive

development efforts.

7. Deep Insight through Superior Analytics ................................................................................................. pg.30

The MicroStrategy BI platform provides an extensive set of data manipulation and analytic options to allow

the user to delve deeply into a report to identify and discover important trends and patterns in the data.

MicroStrategy users can drill anywhere in the entire data warehouse for boundary-free investigative analysis.

MicroStrategy report designers and analysts can view and embed predictive analytics in reports and then

distribute them to all relevant decision makers and stakeholders. Microsoft’s data mining functionality lags behind

the market, offering only a subset of data mining algorithms. Furthermore, Microsoft data mining is tedious and

difficult to use and implement.

8. Flexible Technology for Departmental to Enterprise BI ..........................................................................pg.32

MicroStrategy’s metadata reusability and life cycle management tools, such as MicroStrategy Object Manager,

enable departments to incrementally migrate their business logic into a consolidated enterprise BI environment.

Microsoft does not have a tool equivalent to Object Manager to aid in consolidating and reconciling disparate

departmental BI applications into an enterprise-wide BI application.

The following section of the white paper provides a side-by-side evaluation of MicroStrategy 9 and Microsoft along

the key BI capabilities discussed.

7

1 IDC. “Demonstrating Business Value: Selling to Your C-Level Executives.” Three Year Server TCO. Based on more than 300

interviews conducted across numerous platforms, presented in composite form.

1. DelIverIng More BI wIth less It effort - MICrostrategy DelIvers the lowest tCo

With IT budgets under increasing scrutiny and business requirements becoming more complex, today’s

organizations need to critically examine BI costs. The costs of BI extend beyond the initial acquisition. An IDC study,

Demonstrating Business Value: Selling to Your C-Level Executives, concludes, “Because the single largest factor

affecting TCO is staffing cost, IT initiatives that can reduce IT labor costs are likely to find greater acceptance among

financial decision makers, and initiatives that enable IT consolidation or automation can significantly reduce TCO

across the IT infrastructure.” Figure 1 shows that over three years, IT staffing constitutes between 60 and 71% of BI

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). 1

three-year total Cost of ownership is Dominated by It Personnel Costs

Three-Year Total Cost of Ownership Breakdown

Staffing (60%)

Downtime – UserProductivity

(15%)

IT Staff Training(8%)

Server Hardware(7%)

Software (7%)

Outsourced Costs(3%)

Source: IDC 2007.

Figure 1: Staffing Costs Consume a Majority of Three-Year Software Lifecycle Costs

Three-year total cost of ownership for BI systems is dominated by costs related to IT personnel: IT personnel costs

account for 71% of total costs = Staffing (60%) + Outsourcing Costs (3%) + Staff Training (8%).

Customers and leading industry analysts alike recognize MicroStrategy’s ability to deliver BI to more users and a

great amount of data with fewer IT staff than other BI vendors. Many MicroStrategy customers have expanded their

BI deployments while saving millions of dollars a year in staffing costs by switching from non-MicroStrategy BI tools

to MicroStrategy’s efficient and scalable self-service BI platform. To save costs and ensure successful BI solutions,

decision makers must evaluate the key BI capabilities that reduce IT efforts and make the BI platform easier to

implement, deploy, maintain, and administer.

8

0.4 1.4 1.6 1.8 2.0 2.40.8 1.0 1.2 2.20.6

arplan

Bissantz

Board

Cubeware

IBM Cognos Analysis

IBM Cognos Reporting

IBM Cognos TM1

Information Builders

Infor PM

Jedox PALO

Microsoft SSAS

Microsoft SSRS

MicroStrategy

MIK

Oracle BIEE

Oracle Hyperion

Pentaho

QlikTech

SAP BO Webl

SAP BO Deskl

SAP BW/ BEx Suite

SAS

TARGIT

1.02

1.18

1.72

N/A

N/A

1.96

2.40

N/A

2.16

N/A

1.51

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

1.96

N/A

N/A

MicroStrategy Ranked #1 for Administration Efficiency

0.55

0.39

0.71

0.59

Source: The BI Survey 9 (2010) – This chart provides a KPI score for the deployed seats per administrator head. The KPI is calculated so that higher administration costs lead to a lower KPI and vice versa.

Figure 2: MicroStrategy Technology is Recognized for its Ability to Support Many More Users for Each IT Administrator

MicroStrategy technology requires far fewer IT personnel for a given amount of BI users because its metadata is

inherently easier to maintain and because end users have more self-service capabilities that offload work from the

IT staff.

“ We evaluated several leading BI products and, using a total cost of ownership model, determined

that MicroStrategy had the best combination of ease-of-use, time-to-market, successful retail

implementations, and robust analytical capabilities.” – IT Senior Coordinator of Purchasing,

Private Label and Reporting, Whole Foods Market

The following table lists out key capabilities in which the MicroStrategy 9 platform helps organizations reduce costs

when designing, deploying, administering and maintaining BI applications.

9

KEY COST REDUCING CAPABILITY

MICROSTRATEGY 9 MICROSOFT

Min

imiz

ing

Des

ign

eff

ort

Dynamic report Personalization

yes • MicroStrategy has very robust Prompting

engine. End users can dynamically author reports at run time by selecting attributes, metrics, metric levels, templates, filters, and even hierarchies. This greatly reduces report design dependency on IT and the number of reports for IT to maintain.

lIMIteD

• Microsoft does not offer the same level of prompting capabilities. Object prompting capabilties (like prompt for selecting metrics, template, filters, or hierarchies) are very limited. As a result, IT must create and maintain more reports and business user dependence on IT increases.

automatic Multi-source Drill anywhere

yes • Business users can automatically drill

anywhere to any data source without IT hard coding.

lIMIteD

• Microsoft’s drilling capabilities are limited and typically require IT to manually define drill paths.

formatting over the web yes • Easy What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get

(WYSIWYG) formatting allows business users to format reports at runtime without IT support.

lIMIteD

• Business users have very limited interactivity and WYSIWYG formatting capabilities over the Web.

one repository of reusable Business logic

yes • Report developers can reuse all existing

business logic across the entire platform rather than spending time recreating business logic.

no • Microsoft supports very limited reusability

of business logic across the entire platform. This increases development time and efforts.

visual analysis for rapid Decision Making

yes • MicroStrategy Visual Insight allows

business users to intuitively visualize, filter, and drill into their data. The drag-and-drop, WYSIWYG interface allows business users to make data driven decision quickly and without any IT involvement.

no • Microsoft does not provide visual analysis

capabilities.

Min

imiz

ing

Dep

loym

ent

effo

rt

one report Design automatically Deploys to any Interface

yes • The same report design is automatically

optimized for interacting through all interfaces including Web browsers, mobile devices, and Microsoft Office; and formats including PDF, Flash, and HTML.

lIMIteD

• The same report is not automatically optimized for interacting through all interfaces. For example, redesigning reports is generally required for mobile display.

Browser agnostic Zero-footprint web

yes • Eliminates client installation costs and

ensures application is automatically updated.

• Provides secure access for any browser without IT effort or reliance on ActiveX downloads or IE Active X dependence.

no • Microsoft does not support a browser-

agnostic, zero-footprint web interface. Business users typically require client tools like Report Builder or Excel for their self-service requirements.

easy to Customize and Upgrade

yes • Upgradable plug-ins instantly customize

to corporate look and feel without coding effort.

• Customizations are managed in a central location and can be upgraded with minimal IT effort.

no • Customizations require IT coding.

• Customizations are difficult to manage and upgrade.

automated Deployment yes • Automated life cycle management tool

synchronizes objects across development, test, and production environments thus greatly reducing manual work associated with BI deployments.

no • Microsoft provides limited life cycle

management capabilities. Microsoft requires an administrator to install and separately administer many components creating a maintenance challenge.

10

KEY COST REDUCING CAPABILITY

MICROSTRATEGY 9 MICROSOFT

Min

imiz

ing

D

eplo

ymen

t ef

fort Data Import from the

web Interfaceyes • MicroStrategy Data Import functionality

is for business users and provides the ability to easily import data from local files or relational databases and quickly converts them into dashboards or visualizations without any IT involvement.

no • Microsoft does not provide Web-based

data import functionality for business users.

Min

imiz

ing

ad

min

istr

atio

n e

ffo

rt

single server yes • A centralized server dramatically reduces

administrative effort and complexity.

no • Multiple BI components and multiple

metadatas increase administration efforts and complexity.

single Point of administration

yes • Administrators need to create users and

security settings once and these settings apply to the entire MicroStrategy platform without requiring duplicate IT efforts.

no • The BI deployment has to be configured

and administered at several different places.

out-of-the-Box system-wide Monitoring

yes • Prebuilt system performance dashboards

allow the administrator to immediately analyze system usage data down to the details and to easily optimize resources.

• Automatically logs object change history without requiring IT staff efforts, easing auditing process.

lIMIteD

• Microsoft provides limited enterprise- wide monitoring capabilities. Limited visibility into the BI deployment results in suboptimal utilization of resources.

• Multiple components of the BI platform make it difficult to keep track of the changes.

automated scripting Control

yes • Reduces repetitive and time consuming

administrative tasks through automated command line scripts.

no • Microsoft IT staff typically has to

change object definitions manually and redundantly.

Min

imiz

ing

Mai

nte

nan

ce e

ffo

rt

automated report and Data Integrity Checking

yes • MicroStrategy administrators can uncover

inconsistencies or errors before business users see them while reducing 98% of manual regression testing efforts.

no • Microsoft does not offer a tool for

automated report and data integrity checking.

highly reusable Business Metadata

yes • IT staff have to maintain only one

business metadata object in one place, and this one definition is reused across the entire platform to reduce IT maintenance efforts.

no • Multiple metadatas are typically required

and reusability of metadata objects is also very limited. As a result, redundant development and maintenance efforts are required.

scalable In-Memory rolaP architecture

yes • MicroStrategy customers can instantly

leverage multiple types of data assets without moving data to an enterprise data warehouse.

lIMIteD

• Microsoft offers the ability to go outside pre-calculated Analysis Services cubes. However, this requires careful IT configuration and is not as straightforward as MicroStrategy’s In-memory ROLAP technology.

automatic Change Management

yes • MicroStrategy’s unified platform and

object-oriented development method ensure that a change is propagated to all related objects, ensuring one “version of the truth” with minimal IT maintenance effort.

no • Microsoft’s limited object-oriented

development results in manual and redundant change management processes.

11

2. all User neeDs throUgh a sIngle PlatforM

The ideal architecture for business intelligence is the one that provides organizations with a single and cohesive

model of the business that can be automatically displayed through any user interface. MicroStrategy users have

the option to access a single “version of the truth” through interactive Web, Microsoft Office, and mobile device

interfaces. MicroStrategy 9 includes a newly re-engineered Web user interface that is designed to be faster, more

powerful, and more personalized than ever before. The MicroStrategy 9 Web architecture boasts a wide range of

performance-enhancing changes that make the user interface interactive and instantly responsive to user requests.

five styles of Business Intelligence through a single Platform

Figure 3: Users Can Seamlessly Traverse All Styles of BI from a Unified Platform and a Single Interface

“ MicroStrategy’s long history and devotion to producing world-class business intelligence technology provided

us with extreme confidence that we are making the right decision for our casino partners. MicroStrategy’s

interactive dashboards with advanced data visualizations will allow our clients to view complex data in

an easily understood and graphically appealing manner to improve decision-making. In addition, we look

forward to implementing MicroStrategy’s Mobile BI on the BlackBerry, iPhone, and iPad, which will give

our customers far greater flexibility in business intelligence than is currently available today. ” – President,

Aristocrat Technologies.

Scorecards &

Dashboards

Enterprise

Repor4ng

OLAP Analysis &

Visual Explora4on

Data Mining &

Predic4ve Analysis

Mobile Apps &

Aler4ng

•  Ad Hoc Analysis

•  Predic4ve Analysis

•  Data Mining

•  Visual Explora4on

•  Slice & Dice Inves4ga4ve Analysis

•  Root Cause Determina4on

•  Page‐perfect Opera4onal Repor4ng

•  Pixel‐perfect Business Repor4ng

•  Print‐perfect Statements & Invoices

•  Opera4onal Dashboards

•  Dynamic Scorecards

•  Metrics Management

•  Mobile Applica4ons

•  Massive Informa4on Distribu4on

•  iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, email

•  Excep4on‐based Alerts

12

KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 MICROSOFT

Dynamic enterprise Dashboards

• Dashboards integrated with industrial-strength BI platform

• Fast WYSIWYG Pixel Perfect™ design

• Single design environment

• Automatically drill anywhere in any data source from the dashboard

• Native parallel Flash and DHTML visualizations

• Multiple layers of analysis

• Multi-layout dashboards

• Automatic multi-panel filtering

• Dashboard templates reduce design time

• Dashboard output caching in HTML, PDF, Excel, and Flash for instantaneous response

• Actionable dashboards

yes Dashboards are created using reports and objects from MicroStrategy’s single metadata. Intelligence Server provides its sophisticated processing, security, caching, and analytical capabilities.

Users design dashboards from MicroStrategy’s single Web interface using already familiar design paradigm. Dashboards are created in a Pixel Perfect, zero-footprint Web interface, WYSIWYG and freeform layout.

MicroStrategy dashboards provide high interactivity via selector controls that allow users to dynamically apply filters to all dashboard components and to synchronize data across multiple analytical layers of information. Users can automatically drill throughout the full depth and breadth of the data warehouse to obtain more detailed information or view related information.

MicroStrategy dashboards provide multi-panel and multi-tab layers for various views of data. Multiple dashboards can also be assembled into a single dashboard book.

MicroStrategy 9 dashboard templates provide reusable starting points with sophisticated formatting that can make any business user a dashboard designer.

Pre-calculated dashboards are cached for instant viewing in HTML, PDF, Excel, and Flash.

MicroStrategy provides the ability to implement, and embed transactional capabilities into the dashboards. Using MicroStrategy Dashboards, business users can not only monitor key business metrics, but also initiate appropriate actions from within the dashboard.

lIMIteD

Microsoft has multiple tools and multiple design interfaces to create dashboards (PerformancePoint Dashboard Designer, PowerPivot, Report Designer, Excel, etc.). These tools are loosely integrated with one another and with the rest of the BI platform. The degree of functionality supported by each of the tools is different as is the user interface. In addition, each of these tools typically has its own specific use case. For example, PowerPivot is typically used as a prototyping tool that business users use to define their requirements. IT then creates a certified copy of the same dashboard using other tools for enterprise-wide consumption.

Dashboards created using PerformancePoint must be published to SharePoint to see how they will look. Any small change to the dashboard layout or formatting will require republishing. This awkward design process makes the process frustrating and tedious. PerformancePoint Dashboards do not support distinct layers and users must switch tabs to view different dashboards, increasing context changes and the number of dashboards for IT to maintain.

Dashboard visualizations do not support automatic drill-anywhere capabilities.

Dashboards created using Report Designer are IT intensive and lack WYSIWYG development. Functionality like drilling, prompting, and interactivity is also limited as compared to MicroStrategy.

13


rapid Comprehension of Data through advanced visualizations

• Out-of-the-box library of advanced visualizations

• Automatic drilling from visualizations

• Easy to create and deploy customized widgets

• Flexible properties support different types of data comparisons

• Extensible library of visualizations and widgets created by 3rd parties

• Customizable advanced visualizations and widgets

yes MicroStrategy 9 provides an out-of-the-box library of advanced visualizations and widgets that enhance the understanding of complex data and highlight patterns and trends.

MicroStrategy provides a library of advanced visualizations, including Bullet Graphs, Micro Charts, Interactive Heat Maps, Interactive Bubble Charts, Grid of Graphs, Bubbles Grid, RSS, Fish Eye, Media, Cloud, Time Slider, and Stack Area Charts. All visualizations have drilling capabilities and enable users to select data elements that filter out other areas of the dashboard. Each MicroStrategy widget has flexible capabilities and properties that enable users to immediately identify or further investigate trends or anomalies in the data. For example, the Heat Map widget incorporates OLAP technology that enables users to filter data based on numeric values.

MicroStrategy customers can extend the advanced visualizations library by importing 3rd party visualizations. Advanced dashboard designers can edit or create their own visualizations or widgets. The widgets are built using the power of Adobe® Flash® and are part of MicroStrategy’s single platform.

lIMIteD

Microsoft provides a limited out-of-the-box library of advanced visualizations. Automatic drill-anywhere from the visualizations is not supported out of the box.

Microsoft does not provide the same breadth of visualizations or depth of analysis as MicroStrategy. For example, Microsoft Heat Maps and other visualizations allow the user to mouse over to see values, but the user cannot fully interact with the visualizations. Animating Microsoft Bubble Charts created using Excel require IT programming in Visual Basic for end users to derive the full analytic value of watching the bubble chart trends over time. Strategy Map visualizations require Microsoft Visio.

While most internet users leverage Adobe Flash, Microsoft is currently focused on a competing offering called Microsoft Silverlight. The general population has not adopted Silverlight to the same degree as Flash.

Microsoft decided to catch up with other BI technologies on the visualization front by acquiring Dundas charting components. Not all of the Dundas charts have been integrated into SQL server 2008 R2. In addition, the look and feel of Dundas charting components is different from the native Microsoft Charts.

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robust enterprise reporting

• Pixel Perfect absolute positioning

• OLAP-enabled grids and graphs

• Horizontal and vertical display of data

• Desktop publishing formatting

• Advanced Export to Excel, Word, PowerPoint, or PDF

• High quality printing

• Templates for rapid design

yes MicroStrategy offers comprehensive report styles for banded reports. These documents are highly interactive, providing in-place OLAP analysis through pivoting, drilling, and Excel-like formatting toolbars.

Highly formatted documents are built using common desktop publishing paradigms such as rulers and Pixel Perfect positioning, all in a zero-footprint Web.

MicroStrategy’s export to PDF capabilities support advanced PDF features such as table of contents and watermarks. Export to Excel supports export of multiple document layouts to multiple Excel worksheets.

Print-perfect reports can be printed exactly as-seen to any network printer. MicroStrategy documents can be printed horizontally or vertically. Users can dynamically change the page layout, apply fit-to-page functionality, and customize headers and footers for any report.

MicroStrategy provides out-of-the-box templates and the ability to create custom templates in order to decrease design time. These templates can be saved and shared across multiple projects.

lIMIteD

Microsoft’s Reporting Services requires one of two user interfaces to design reports: Report Designer, which is an overwhelming programming-like environment, or Report Builder, which is a thick client plug-in. In both cases, Reporting Services does not offer report designers a way to edit and format the report layout while viewing it with a real-time WYSIWYG view of their changes. Lack of easy formatting capabilities increases the design time due to unnecessary iterations.

Report Builder provides basic report building capabilities, limiting its use for creating fairly simple reports. Report Builder does not let end users explore entire SQL Server databases. Instead, it depends on a data model: a preselected group of tables and relationships that a developer has identified as suitable for end-user reporting. Each data model requires setting up a number of different properties, including security infrastructure, making the process redundant.

Report Builder and Report Designer provide limited interoperability. The limited common authoring capabilities between report designer tools increases design time and IT maintenance efforts.

Information Delivery and Proactive notification

• Ability to self-subscribe and subscribe others to report deliveries

• Alerting and thresholds

• Wide range of output types: Web, e-mail, print, fax, wireless, and file server

• Report bursting

• Portal integration, with support for portal servers including: Microsoft SharePoint, SAP NetWeaver Portal, Oracle WebLogic, and WebSphere

yes Users can subscribe themselves and other users to personalized reports and alerts. Report deliveries can be triggered by dynamic events, exception thresholds, or time schedules. Personalized content can be delivered via portal, print, email, wireless, or file servers.

MicroStrategy’s platform leverages highly scalable technology that slices a single report and dynamically bursts personalized information to the right users. Reusing a single report across hundreds of users saves processing resources.

Portal integration is available out- of-the-box, with support for portal servers such as Microsoft SharePoint, SAP NetWeaver Portal, Oracle WebLogic, and WebSphere. Portlet-to-portlet communication is also available out-of-the-box, making it easier to inject BI into a portal.

lIMIteD

End users typically have very limited control of their subscriptions and have to depend on IT for setting up subscriptions and any subsequent modifications to their subscriptions.

Microsoft Notification Services requires IT administrators to create schedules for IT analysts to use. The schedules can be created as shared schedules or report-specific schedules. Shared schedules are system-level items, requiring system-level permissions. For this reason, a report server administrator or content manager typically creates the shared schedules that are available on the report server.

Report-specific schedules must be created individually for each and every report and cannot be shared across reports. There is limited centralized management of report-specific schedules, creating administration challenges.

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flexible and Powerful olaP Interactivity

• Drill anywhere fosters investigative analysis

• Derived elements and derived metrics for on-the-fly calculations and groupings

• View filters for quick data filtering

• On the fly creation of derived elements, custom groups, subtotals, etc.

• Built-in financial and statistical functions

yes The MicroStrategy BI platform provides an extensive set of data manipulation options to allow the user to delve deeply into a report to identify and discover important trends and patterns in the data. Users can drill anywhere in the entire data warehouse for boundary-free investigative analysis.

New derived metrics, derived attribute element groups, filters, and subtotals can be created on- the-fly using existing metrics and attributes in the report. This functionality makes it possible for users to perform new calculations, custom groupings, and filtering directly on the report at the speed of thought.

MicroStrategy’s analytical engine provides hundreds of built-in financial, statistical, and mathematical functions.

lIMIteD

Microsoft enterprise reports do not offer robust drilling capabilities. Automatic drill-anywhere capability is not supported and drill paths are typically pre-defined by IT. It is not possible to define drill paths on metrics. In addition, multiple tools requires users to define drilling from multiple interfaces (Report Builder, Analysis Services, etc.).

Microsoft offers different levels of functionality from its different report authoring tools. Performing on-the-fly actions like subtotaling and grouping are supported from Excel or PowerPivot. However, the same level of functionality is not supported when the same Excel or PowerPivot workbook is viewed over the Web. In addition, reports created by Report Designer or Report Builder support very limited on-the-fly manipulations and interactivity.

seamless Microsoft office Integration

• All Office products supported (Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Outlook)

• Leverage all BI reports and reporting objects

• Full new report creation

• Ability to save logic created in Excel back to enterprise metadata

• Persistent and interchangeable formatting across Office and Web

• Server based configuration for client settings, user, host, and IP address settings

yes MicroStrategy delivers the complete reporting and analysis environment to Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and Outlook users. MicroStrategy Office applications are linked to MicroStrategy security and administration, ensuring 100% data consistency across the enterprise. Users are able to access existing reports or create new ones from within Microsoft Office applications. Changes made through Microsoft Office are immediately reflected across MicroStrategy Office and Web interfaces and can be saved to the enterprise business logic metadata layer. Microsoft Office formatting changes are preserved after automatic data updates.

The Web administrator can set client side settings and security. Users can change their passwords through the familiar Microsoft Office interface.

lIMIteD

Microsoft Office integration across their BI offering is limited and cumbersome. For instance, users cannot access report models or Reporting Services reports from Microsoft Excel, which hinders their ability to leverage all information assets within the Office environment.

Integration of other Microsoft Office products, such as Microsoft Word, is greatly limited or nonexistent. As a consequence of poor integration, output into Microsoft Office products is usually static data.

3. self-servICe throUgh a fast anD IntUItIve weB InterfaCe

MicroStrategy 9 provides capabilities for business personnel to create their own ad hoc report designs easily from

their Web browser. Using drag-and-drop actions through the MicroStrategy 9 Web interface, any business person

can assemble virtually any report by adding attributes and metrics to a simple report template without the need

to know any technical details about the data or the underlying databases. With MicroStrategy 9, business users

also have the ability to interactively build analysis with dozens of visualization options. To enhance usability, the

MicroStrategy 9 Web user interface adopts many familiar Microsoft paradigms, including ribbon toolbars, accordion

controls, control-click multi-select capability, and context-sensitive right-click actions.

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Microstrategy Provides end Users with a fast and Intuitive User experience

Add/Remove

•  A*ributes

•  Metrics

Many

Views

Easily Filter

data Visually Analyze Data or

use OLAP enabled Grids

Drop Zones for

mulCdimensional

analysis

Figure 4: Design and Format a MicroStrategy Report Using a Fast and Intuitive User Interface

MicroStrategy’s next-generation of advanced self-service functionality is designed to provide more control to business

users. Business users can easily import their personal or corporate data directly from the MicroStrategy Web interface

and quickly convert the raw data into insightful visual analyses, reports, or dashboards. The MicroStrategy Visual

Insight interface provides incredible speed-of-interactivity, stunning visualizations, drag-and-drop manipulations, and

instant results – thus allowing business users to rapidly go from data to decisions.

“ We were impressed with MicroStrategy’s self-service architecture, ease-of-use, highly visual dashboards,

and mobile reporting that allows us to put the analytics and reporting in the hands of the business user.

MicroStrategy’s history in the business intelligence sphere also gave us confidence that we had chosen the

right technology partner.” – IT Specialist at Silverstar Casinos

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User-friendly Interface

• Drag-and-drop actions

• One-click access

• Familiar Microsoft paradigms

• Tree view navigation

• Ribbon toolbars and menus

• Accordion controls

• Personalized interface

• User collaboration capabilities

• Context-sensitive online help

• Sophisticated formatting for final report presentation

yes The MicroStrategy Web interface leverages many familiar, user-friendly paradigms, including folder-tree navigation, ribbon toolbars, accordion controls, control-click multi-select capabilities, and context-sensitive right-click actions.

MicroStrategy 9 enables collaboration via comments that can be added to reports to provide instructions to other users and to share information. Every report can maintain and display a set of notes with details on who left the note and when.

MicroStrategy provides users comprehensive, context-sensitive help throughout the interface.

MicroStrategy Web allows users to format reports and save custom format styles. These include row-level headers, row-level values, column-level headers, column-level values, metric headers, metric values, subtotal headers, subtotal values, custom groups, consolidation, and reports.

lIMIteD

Microsoft’s Web interface functionality suffers as a result of Microsoft’s decision to focus on Excel and PowerPivot as their BI front end tools. Excel and PowerPivot workbooks created by end users can be published to SharePoint for consumption over the Web. However, the interactivity supported over the Web is very limited.

Microsoft end users get a very static view of the Reporting Services reports over the Web. The Web interface is generally limited to viewing the report and performing basic manipulations. In order to create reports from scratch, client tools like Report Builder or Report Designer are required. Report Designer requires heavy IT efforts to create production quality reports. The design interface is cumbersome and does not support WYSIWYG design capabilities, making the design and development of production quality reports tedious and time consuming.

Developers and end users have to familiarize themselves with multiple Microsoft BI components and interfaces. This significantly increases the training time and negatively impacts BI adoption.

self-service web Interface

• Fully interactive interface with controls for data formatting, manipulation, and analysis

• Real-time changes without a publishing process

• Creation of report objects, such as prompts and filters, over the Web

• What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) design and editing of any report type over the Web

• Zero-footprint Web interface from any browser

yes MicroStrategy puts wide-ranging control in the hands of business users, minimizing the need for IT personnel to perform the same functions. Business users are able to rapidly create, manipulate, format, and analyze any report themselves, all through a single Web interface. Report objects such as prompts, filters, derived metrics, thresholds, and totals can also be created over the Web. Individual columns and rows on a grid can be selected quickly and users can easily format, drill, pivot, and perform other tasks on-the-fly.

Changes are available right away without any need to publish or export information to other environments.

Business users create highly formatted reports using any metadata object using a zero-footprint, WYSIWYG design paradigm that drastically shortens report development time.

MicroStrategy Web is zero-footprint, and does not rely on Java or ActiveX. As a result, report designers and business users can use any browser to design and interact with reports.

lIMIteD

Microsoft continues to position Excel and PowerPivot as end user self-service tools, irrespective of the fact that the BI industry analysts and leading vendors have recognized the limitations of Excel for reusable user self-service. Use of Excel and PowerPivot as end user self-service tools increases the likelihood of having multiple versions of the truth and “spreadmart” problems.

Microsoft also offers Report Builder as the end user reporting tool. However, Report Builder only supports a subset of the functionality supported by Report Designer, which is Microsoft’s production reporting tool. Most report development tasks require Report Designer, which requires a high degree of technical training and skills. Business users typically have to wait for IT developers to create and publish reports for their consumption.

Microsoft has a developer-centric reporting environment rather than a user self-service model. Lack of WYSIWYG design capability and limited functionality over the Web negatively affects end user self-service capabilities and increases IT workload considerably.

Real time changes without a publishing process are not supported.

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advanced self-service functionality

• Data Import

• Visual Insight

yes The Data Import and Visual Insight functionality is designed to give more control to business users. Business users can convert raw data into decisions in minutes and without assistance from the IT department.

Using Data Import functionality, business users can easily import personal or corporate data from local files, Excel files, or relational databases through the MicroStrategy Web interface. The imported data can be easily converted into interactive reports or dashboards without any IT assistance.

MicroStrategy Visual Insight allows business users to visually identify patterns, trends, and anomalies in data. Business users can intuitively query, visualize, filter, and drill into their data. A drag-and-drop, WYSIWYG interface enables business users to visualize the changes as they are made. MicroStrategy Visual Insight provides incredible speed-of-interactivity, detailed visualizations, and instant query results – thus allowing business users to rapidly go from data to decisions.

no Microsoft does not support importing data from local files, excel files, or relational databases using the Web interface.

Microsoft does not provide visual analysis capabilities.

Instant response to User actions

• Extreme AJAX Web interface

• High degree of client-side processing while maintaining a zero-footprint Web client

yes The MicroStrategy Web architecture adheres to an Extreme AJAX model, shifting processing from the Web server to the Web browser for any browser type. By spreading the processing workload, the user is given a much more responsive and interactive Web experience while still preserving a true zero-footprint Web interface.

lIMIteD

Configuring SQL Server reports into an ASP.NET AJAX enabled Web application requires significant IT efforts and is difficult to implement.

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Dynamic report Personalization

• Comprehensive parameter and question prompting (column, filter, search based, value, hierarchical)

• Personal answers saved for reuse across different reports

• Security profiles personalize report content for individual users

yes In MicroStrategy, a single report can span hundreds of possible data combinations tailored to different user needs.

MicroStrategy prompts provide report input parameters that control most aspects of a report, and give the user significant ad hoc reporting capabilities. Prompts enable the personalization of reports from a single report definition, reducing the number of objects stored in the metadata repository.

Advanced report parameters, like object (column) and hierarchy prompts, allow users to select the business attributes and KPIs to include in the report at run-time.

MicroStrategy Web displays prompt values and report contents that are permitted by the user's security profile. For example, when running a prompted report, dashboard, or document, the user can only select prompt answers that he has permission to see. In a similar way, when running a report, only the metrics and attributes that the user has permission to see will be displayed to the user.

lIMIteD

Microsoft offers limited options for business users to parameterize reports through choosing personalized filters, report fields, and calculations. Prompting is generally limited to selecting attribute elements and metric values. Object prompting (like prompts for selecting metrics, templates, filters, or hierarchies) is very limited. As a result, business users must wait for IT when they want to change the report view by adding fields.

Prompts created for one report cannot be reused across the entire BI platform. As a result, a significant amount of redundant development effort is required.

Report building tools like Report Designer and Report Builder typically require modifying and customizing the report SQL to enable prompting, making it more cumbersome for business analysts to parameterize their analyses.

4. hIgh PerforManCe at any sCale

MicroStrategy technology has long been the performance leader at high user counts and data scale. MicroStrategy

9 continues and extends that leadership with adaptive caching technology called In-memory ROLAP and SQL

generation optimizations that can deliver the highest query performance, even when accessing hundreds of

terabytes of data. In-memory ROLAP takes advantage of the huge addressable memory space now available on 64-

bit computers to provide high performance middle-tier databases that can respond directly to data requests from

reports, dashboards, and OLAP analyses.

“ We look forward to using MicroStrategy 9 In-memory ROLAP technology to help us improve our user

experience with faster response times and to take unnecessary pressure off our Teradata system.”

– Manager of BI Architecture, eBay

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In-memory BI fills a void in the Performance Curve of a BI system

BEFORE IN-MEMORY BI AFTER IN-MEMORY BI

Output Caching

In-memory On-Disk

Caching Query

Database Query Slower

Response Time

Data SetCachingReport

CachingOutput Caching

Database Query

Data SetCaching

In-memoryQuery

Report Caching

In-memory On-Disk

Caching Query

FasterResponse Time

Figure 5: MicroStrategy In-Memory BI Provides the Combination of Fast Response Time from Multidimensional Caching and the Flexibility of Ad Hoc Query BI

ROLAP is unique among BI architectures in that it can model whole relational databases as if they were a single

multi-dimensional cube. In this case, the cube is virtual since relational databases often contain terabytes of data

that could not fit within any physical cube technology. MicroStrategy’s virtual cube provides MicroStrategy users

with the ability to perform OLAP interactions with the data and drill freely throughout the vast virtual cube without

the severe size limitations of MOLAP architectures.

“ MicroStrategy’s new In-memory ROLAP option is game changing. Unlike other in-memory approaches on

the market today, it is fully integrated with an enterprise BI environment and provides high performance

transparently to business users. The way in which large amounts of data are stored and accessed in-memory

is so seamless that I was skeptical until I saw the actual SQL generated and witnessed the performance. ”

– Cindi Howson, Founder of BIScorecard

Microstrategy 9 Multi-source rolaP allows Data environments to be optimized for Performance and Cost

MicroStrategy Virtual Cube

MarketingData Mart

MicroStrategy Virtual Cube

MfgData Mart

EnterpriseData Whse

SalesData Mart

FinancialData Mart

Lookups, Aggregates,Summary Data

Enterprise Data Warehouse

Supporting Hub and Spoke Data Architectures Balance the Workload Across Databases

SQLServer

Teradata

MySQL

Netezza

SybaseIQ

SQLServerDB2

Figure 6: MicroStrategy Multi-source ROLAP Helps Decrease Time to Value by incorporating Hub and Spoke Architectures and Decrease Cost by Switching Database Processing from the Enterprise Data Warehouse to Alternative Lower Cost Databases.

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Successful BI systems often experience dramatic growth in user populations. It is increasingly common for a single

MicroStrategy BI installation to support thousands and even tens of thousands of business users. The technical

challenge in these circumstances is to be able to efficiently accommodate thousands of concurrent user sessions

while providing high performance and easy administration. MicroStrategy 9 supports 64-bit Java Virtual Machines

(JVMs) in both J2EE Web servers as well as ASP.net Web Servers. The dramatically expanded memory available in 64-

bit JVMs supports many more concurrent user sessions, and allows users to display and interact with larger reports

and dashboards.

“ The most critical factor for our organization is the speed with which we can react to the needs of the

business. MicroStrategy enables our executives and other business users to run reports and analyses

within seconds, which in turn, allows our employees to make timely decisions that dramatically impact

the business. Also, our high performance BI environment encourages the use of BI across the company,

providing greater visibility into the business for more employees.” – Chief Information Officer, FAMIQ


Quick response time

• In-memory ROLAP

• Dynamic sourcing

• Dynamic multi-level caching

yes MicroStrategy’s In-memory ROLAP capabilities leverage 64-bit operating systems to improve the overall performance of the BI system. In-memory ROLAP cubes improve the performance of the most time-consuming and frequently-used queries, while still allowing users to seamlessly navigate the entire data warehouse.

When building a report, the report developer never has to explicitly reference an In-memory ROLAP cube. Dynamic sourcing capabilities automatically direct queries to In-memory ROLAP cubes whenever possible. Administrators can be assured that the In-memory ROLAP cubes they create will automatically and immediately improve overall query performance.

MicroStrategy provides automatic caching at multiple levels, including element list, metadata object, report dataset, XML definition, document output, and database connection caching. Caching makes the entire BI system efficient by reducing redundant computations and network traffic.

lIMIteD

Microsoft offers the ability to go outside pre-calculated Analysis Services cubes. However, this requires careful IT configuration and is not as seamless and as straightforward as MicroStrategy’s In-memory ROLAP technology.

Microsoft does not offer the same degree of dynamic data sourcing as MicroStrategy.

Microsoft developers have the option to manually set either a static or dynamic data connection for each report. The dynamic connection string will present the user with a preset list of database connections and the user must choose which database connection to use. It is unrealistic to expect users to learn the structure of their corporate data and to select each data source at run time.

Caching is generally limited to only Report output caching. Multi-level caching capabilities, like caching metadata objects or element list caching, is very limited. Therefore users cannot fully realize the performance benefits of caching.

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high Performance rolaP engine

• Push-down joins

• Push-down analytics

• Multi-pass SQL

• Support for all implementations of multi-pass SQL, including the use of temp tables, derived tables, and common table expressions

• Minimize network traffic

• Automatic aggregate awareness

• Database-specific SQL generation and optimization through VLDB drivers

• SQL query optimization algorithms

yes MicroStrategy’s ROLAP architecture uses the database for much of its processing. Data joins and analytic calculations are processed in the database whenever possible. MicroStrategy’s multi-pass approach provides the flexibility to answer analytical questions in an optimal manner. Any technical advances in the database are seamlessly accessible to the MicroStrategy platform. By leveraging the database to its fullest extent possible, large volumes of transaction level data are processed efficiently and network traffic is minimized.

Automatic and intelligent support for common data warehouse optimization techniques like aggregate tables and table partitioning ensures that the MicroStrategy SQL engine maximizes database usage for every analysis.

VLDB properties allow for further fine-tuning of the SQL engine on both a global and report-by-report basis. Through VLDB drivers, MicroStrategy can optimize table join sequences, databases’ parallel execution capabilities, query optimization hints, and other database-specific tuning parameters.

Global SQL query optimization algorithms optimize complex queries to reduce the number of SQL passes, providing further performance improvement to queries.

lIMIteD

Microsoft’s ROLAP development lags several years behind MicroStrategy’s ROLAP development and does not provide the same level of functionality.

Microsoft does not offer the same degree of automatic aggregate awareness as MicroStrategy. Limited automatic aggregate awareness means that IT professionals have to spend far more time manually tuning reports for faster performance.

Microsoft optimizes its queries for Microsoft data sources, namely SQL Server Database and Analysis Services cubes. Microsoft Analysis Services and Reporting Services offer far fewer out-of-the-box database-specific optimizations for database-specific SQL generation. Performance tuning options using VLDB settings are also very limited.

Microsoft has limited capabilities to perform sophisticated analysis that require multi-pass SQL generation capabilities. Multi-pass SQL is required to answer analytical questions that cannot be answered with a single SQL query block. As a result, IT developers may have to manually write SQL statements to perform analysis that requires answering complex questions.

Market Proven enterprise scalability and Performance

• Native 64-bit BI processing

• 64-bit Java Virtual Machines (JVMs) support

• Server Clustering for failover recovery and load balancing

• Customer references for large user and data scale production deployments

yes The MicroStrategy platform is designed for enterprise scalability. Native 64-bit processing allows MicroStrategy to support large numbers of users and data volumes while improving performance. MicroStrategy supports native 64-bit processing for all major operating systems, and across the entire BI platform.

MicroStrategy also fully supports 64-bit Java Virtual Machines (JVMs) in both J2EE Web servers as well as ASP.net Web Servers. The expanded memory available in 64-bit JVMs allows for optimal Web performance across the enterprise. One server can maintain more concurrent user sessions and run much larger reports, reducing overall hardware costs.

A cluster-capable server provides load balancing and automatic failover capabilities, so system resources are allocated efficiently and system uptime is maximized. MicroStrategy clustered servers support asymmetric configurations, so each cluster node can support different applications. All cluster nodes share caches and in-memory cubes and all changes made to the metadata objects and security settings take effect immediately.

MicroStrategy has many customer references for deployments to thousands of users who are reporting and analyzing tens of terabytes of data.

lIMIteD

The Microsoft load-balancing solution is Network Load Balancing (NLB), which is a feature of the Windows Server operating system. Incoming requests are load balanced among the Analysis Services servers. Server nodes however do not share data caches, resulting in suboptimal resource utilization.

Microsoft has traditionally served smaller organizations and departmental applications with relatively small amounts of data. Microsoft cannot provide a significant number of customer references who are deploying to tens of thousands of users and tens of terabytes of data.

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5. QUICK to IMPleMent anD DePloy, easy to MaIntaIn anD aDMInIster

MicroStrategy 9 can deliver BI solutions quickly with little or no IT support. MicroStrategy’s unified BI architecture

offers many IT timesaving features including object reuse and optimized administration. MicroStrategy 9 allows

organizations to create a single shared business logic layer, the metadata, which presents a single cohesive model

of the business. Object reuse across the entire platform facilitates faster application development. Object reuse

across the entire platform also minimizes IT maintenance effort, since IT only needs to maintain one object instead

of several (or several hundred) object copies. Object reuse ensures a single “version of the truth” that persists across

all reports, dashboards, and analyses, regardless of who creates them.

Microstrategy allows report Designers to Create reusable Metadata Components

Range of MetadataElements Used in Reports

REPORT DESIGN

Layout

Format

Calculations

REPORT COMPONENTS

Parameterization

Templates

Filters

Autostyles

BUSINESS ABSTRACTION

Metrics

Hierarchies

Custom Groupings

Transformations

DATA ABSTRACTION

Attributes

Facts

Tables

Aliases

MicroStrategy Other BI Technologies

Report-Specific

Components

Report-Specific

Components

ReusableMetadata

Components

ReusableMetadata

Components

Figure 7: The More Comprehensive the Reusable Metadata, the More an Enterprise can Ensure Fast and Managed Development

MicroStrategy designed its architecture to minimize administration overhead through capabilities such as a single

administration point, reusable and automated cell level data security, and automatic internationalization features.

A central point of control across the entire platform reduces overhead. MicroStrategy’s universally-applied reusable

security system protects the privacy of the data and dynamically filters out data from any report based on the

security profile of each business user. MicroStrategy 9 offers the ability to automatically present every report,

dashboard, or OLAP analysis in the local language of each business user viewing the information without requiring

any additional design work by report authors. MicroStrategy capabilities, such as centralization and automation,

allow administrators to deliver secure BI to any user base, whether to a department or to thousands of users, with

minimal IT effort.

“ The new BI system has reduced the time we spend on monthly reporting by more than 50%. There is now

more time to spend on operations and innovation.” – IT Specialist, Silverstar Casino

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Unified BI architecture

• Single interface provides seamless integration of analytics and reporting for root cause analysis

• Single metadata reduces IT effort

• Single Server

• Single code base across platforms

• Single, zero-footprint Web interface

yes MicroStrategy’s single code base offers reusable business logic across the entire platform. For example, MicroStrategy’s dashboards can be made from existing reports and objects, speeding development and ensuring consistency of report logic across reports and dashboards.

MicroStrategy’s single BI server provides efficient, centralized administration for the IT administrator. A single server with fewer moving parts and processes translates into less downtime.

lIMIteD

Microsoft has a large number of BI components with varying degrees of integration: Microsoft Reporting Services (for reporting), Analysis Services (for OLAP), Report Builder (for ad-hoc), Report Designer (for report designing), Excel/PowerPivot (end user analysis), PerformancePoint Dashboard Designer (for dashboards), SharePoint (for sharing reports and dashboards), Excel Services (shared Excel via the Web, requires SharePoint), and SQL Server Management Studio (for Administration).

These different components support overlapping functionality. As a result, users have to get acquainted with multiple tools and interfaces, increasing training time and costs and reducing BI adoption.

reusable and rich Metadata layer

• Robust abstraction layer where all physical constructs can be modeled logically and hidden from the business user

• Highly reusable metadata

• Automatic change management

• Object-oriented metadata

yes MicroStrategy’s object-oriented metadata defines an enterprise’s business layer in a single repository. Metadata objects can be nested as building blocks to create more complex objects. If a metadata object changes, every other metadata object dependent on it automatically changes. This ensures consistency across business definitions and minimizes the number of objects to create and maintain.

MicroStrategy assembles all metadata objects necessary for a report and dynamically builds the report SQL at run-time. Complex queries, such as set qualifications, dimensional calculations, and custom groupings, are created easily without requiring manual SQL coding.

lIMIteD

Microsoft does not provide a unified metadata layer across the entire BI platform. Microsoft positions Unified Data Model (UDM) as a centralized metadata. However, a UDM is a SSAS cube and its use as a metadata layer across the entire platform is theoretical.

Some Microsoft report pieces are reusable but the reusability of metadata components is very limited. Most of the metadata or business logic is built within the report definition and users cannot reuse it across other reports or dashboards. Report Parts are reusable but can only be created and published from Report Builder 3.0. If someone uses Report Designer to create reports, they will have to switch between tools to use and publish Report Parts. In addition, not all BI components can leverage the reusable Report Parts.

Microsoft does not support a fully object-oriented development of BI content. As a result, automatic change management capabilities are affected. For example, if a common business definition changes, Microsoft IT administrators will have to manually change every report that is affected by the change in the business definition.

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enterprise-Caliber administration

• Single management console

• Self-tuning scalable server for maximum performance

• Impact analysis

• Usage monitoring / auditing

• Controlled environment for usage analysis

• Object management / migration

• Change journaling

• Automated regression testing

• Optimization of In-Memory ROLAP environment

yes MicroStrategy’s centralized administration provides a single console for real-time user and system management. Administrators can view and perform tasks on many system-wide activities, including executing jobs, user management, and scheduled services.

MicroStrategy Enterprise Manager provides out-of-the box platform monitoring with hundreds of KPIs and corresponding dashboards to perform impact analysis, auditing and tuning of the BI application.

MicroStrategy Object Manager facilitates metadata life cycle management, metadata dependencies, and project management.

MicroStrategy’s change journaling system captures and logs all changes to the metadata. Change tracking is critical for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. Persistent commenting allows distributed development teams to communicate with one another about their changes.

MicroStrategy Integrity Manager automates the report comparison process and verifies the consistency of reports. This tool can detect, compare, and present inconsistencies in reports and data caused by changes in the BI ecosystem. Discrepancies in data values, SQL, and graph display are highlighted.

Cube Advisor recommends and automatically creates an optimal set of In-Memory Cubes to reduce database processing and improve response times.

lIMIteD

Microsoft BI has multiple user interfaces, multiple metadatas, and multiple points of administration and configuration. For a sizeable BI implementation this duplicity exponentially increases the number of full-time administrators required to secure and administer the BI deployment and considerably increases IT workload and total cost of ownership.

Microsoft’s out-of-the-box monitoring capabilities are limited and monitoring reports remain relatively static and inflexible. In addition, multiple overlapping components (SharePoint, SQL Server, Excel/PowerPivot) create challenges in effectively monitoring the entire BI deployment.

Microsoft provides limited out-of-the-box change journaling features. IT has to spend more time documenting their environment for complying with Sarbanes-Oxley requirements.

Microsoft does not offer a regression testing tool like MicroStrategy Integrity Manager. Microsoft IT personnel must manually test every report to ensure accuracy and consistency of the report data and display.

Microsoft does not provide a tool that recommends and automatically creates in-memory cubes to provide instant performance improvements. A major system overhaul is typically required in order to improve performance using cubes.

Industrial-strength Multi-level security

• One, reusable setup for platform-wide cell level data security

• Same report yields different views of the information based on user profiles

• User profile determines appropriate level of functionality

• Truly zero-footprint Web interface. No use or download of ActiveX and other plug-ins

• Automatic secure extranet ready with 128-bit encryption

• Integrate with any security infrastructure with single sign-on

yes MicroStrategy provides centralized security administration across the entire platform. Reusable user profiles and privileges automatically ensure users only access the appropriate information and functionality down to the data cell level.

MicroStrategy automatically provides 128-bit end-to-end encryption with a zero-footprint Web client, making it a secure platform behind the firewall.

MicroStrategy automatically integrates with existing security authentication infrastructure such as LDAP, NT, Windows Active Directory, Tivoli, CA SiteMinder, and database security.

lIMIteD

Microsoft’s many servers and overlapping security setup processes indicate an immature BI platform that is IT intensive to maintain and secure.

Microsoft does not provide a true zero-footprint web deployment. In addition, Microsoft is optimized for the IE browser and does not provide the same level of functionality for other browsers, like Firefox or Safari. Microsoft requires several plug-ins throughout its BI offering. For example, an ActiveX component is downloaded to assist printing functions in Microsoft Reporting Services. The use of ActiveX and other thick plug-ins from Microsoft throughout its BI offering limits its deployability via the extranet. These downloads raise questions about security from IT security administrators at member organizations.

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easy to Maintain global Deployments

• Native support for multilingual deployments

• Configurable translations for multiple content categories, including the interface, error messages, date/number formatting, metadata objects, and report data

• Integrated interfaces and wizards to input translations or import translation strings

• Support for partially translated metadata

• Flexible support for multiple data warehouse translation methods

• Internationalization-aware data pre-calculations

yes MicroStrategy offers the ability to dynamically present every report, dashboard, or OLAP analysis in the local language of each business user viewing the information.

Translation wizards and interfaces make it easy for end users to input or import translation strings into the metadata. Translations can be performed incrementally; fallback language settings allow for partially translated metadata.

Multiple methods of data warehouse translations are supported, including translations at the column-level, row-level, table-level, and database-level. A single In-memory ROLAP Cube supports multiple languages so that resources are used efficiently.

lIMIteD

Microsoft’s internationalization features lag behind market standards. Microsoft provides limited translation wizards to aid IT professionals in localizing the BI applications. Limited automated tools for managing multilingual deployments results in more IT development effort and increases the possibility of human error.

The lack of an enterprise-wide semantic model and multiple overlapping BI tools creates challenges in deploying and maintaining multilingual BI applications.

easy to Customize and Migrate seamlessly

• Single development environment for entire platform

• Easy to create and upgrade customizations via Web Customization editor

• Eclipse Integrated Development Environment(IDE) integration

• Flex Builder support

• Extensive API documentation

yes The MicroStrategy SDK is a comprehensive development environment primarily used for integrating MicroStrategy functionality into other existing systems, especially enterprise portals, and customizing and extending the functionality of MicroStrategy Web.

The MicroStrategy Web Customization Editor integrates into the Eclipse IDE. Developers can easily perform MicroStrategy Web customization and migration tasks by eliminating the need to manually modify configuration files.

MicroStrategy provides Flex Builder 3.0 support for creating powerful Internet applications embedded with robust business intelligence.

The MicroStrategy Developer Zone offers developers access to documentation via advanced search functionality such as sorting results by relevance or by date, wild card and exact phrase searching, word highlighting, spelling suggestions, and exclusion searches.

MicroStrategy provides developers with an online collaborative community, documentation, and customization code samples.

lIMIteD

Microsoft customizations require extensive IT expertise. Microsoft requires developers to make customizations through multiple layers of the BI platform. Customizing multiple application layers adds complexity to the coding and documentation process.

Microsoft traditionally spaces its product releases over several years and makes substantial changes to the platform that often include discontinuing individual products. With a long history of discontinuing products, Microsoft BI customers often need to rebuild and re-customize the BI environment when upgrading.

6. hIghly InteraCtIve anD flexIBle MoBIle IntelIgenCe

The use of the Internet on smartphones and other mobile devices has changed the way people communicate and

consume information, creating an exponential rise in the acceptance, adoption, and usage of data. With the ability

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to access information at any time, in any location, on a hand-held device, consumers can now make more and

more decisions quickly and easily.

MicroStrategy offers a very robust and innovative mobile app development platform that can be used either

for creating purpose-built, workflow-driven mobile applications, or for directly displaying existing Reports and

Dashboards on mobile devices without the need of re-authoring.

MicroStrategy Mobile Apps:

• Are faster and simpler to develop (no coding) – Created by metadata driven, point-and-click paradigms

and fully utilizing MicroStrategy’s BI infrastructure, security, and reusable metadata components.

• Are easier to maintain – Changes to the centralized BI platform metadata are instantaneously

propagated to all user interfaces, including mobile devices. Changes are made once and only in one

place in the metadata, ensuring a “single version of the truth” and hassle-free maintenance.

• Are enterprise grade – Delivers the full benefits of MicroStrategy’s BI infrastructure: administration,

security, scalability, and performance.

• Provide intuitive and powerful visualizations – Fully leverages MicroStrategy’s vast library of advanced

visualizations.

• Provide exceptional flexibility – The MicroStrategy app platform provides exceptional flexibility to create

a wide range of mobile apps that go above and beyond the boundaries of traditional BI, without

writing a single line of code.

Most other BI companies are still trying to establish their mobile strategies and are primarily focused on providing

traditional BI through mobile devices. These companies do not offer an app development platform that is specifically

designed for building rich mobile applications, while fully leveraging the underlying BI platform infrastructure.

Information at your fingertips – Using Microstrategy’s workflow-Driven Mobile BI

Figure 8: MicroStrategy Mobile Intelligence Provide Exceptional Flexibility to Create a Wide Range of Mobile Apps.

app-Centric

Purpose-built, workflow-driven Apps that quickly and easily guide users through their data to discovery, analysis, or decision. Apps fully leverage mobile device capabilities, including the multi-touch interface, sensors (GPS, camera, etc.), communications (voice, email, text), and more.

enterprise grade

Designed to deliver the higher levels of performance and scalability demanded by mobile Apps. MicroStrategy delivers in-memory, multi-level caching, ROLAP analytics, robust security, easy extensibility, and comprehensive administration features designed for enterprise deployments.

fast to app

Fast, code-free app development via MicroStrategy’s metadata-driven, point-and-click paradigm. Build rich, interactive BI apps in just days. Speed deployment by building once and deploying across platform to iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, browsers, Microsoft Office, or portals.

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“ We were ‘wowed’ by MicroStrategy’s technology and the ability to build our application in one week

leveraging our existing infrastructure. Our clients are very excited about our new iPhone app and the

capabilities it provides to help them enhance efficiency and improve business performance. We see

tremendous potential for iPhone and iPad apps, which will enable our clients to access important

information whenever they need it.” – CTO at Alloso Technologies


enterprise grade Mobile application

• Single “version of the truth”

• Minimum development efforts

• Minimum maintenance efforts

• Superior performance and scalability

• Minimum administration efforts

yes MicroStrategy Mobile accesses the same reports and dashboards used by all other MicroStrategy user interfaces, ensuring a “single version of the truth.” Because reports and dashboards in the BI application do not have to be re-authored for mobile device, minimal additional IT investment is required for mobile deployment.

New reports for mobile devices are created by a metadata driven, point-and-click paradigm fully utilizing MicroStrategy’s BI infrastructure, security, and reusable metadata components. As a result, reports for mobile devices can be created rapidly and easily, in a code-free environment.

MicroStrategy’s object-oriented development paradigm results in reduced maintenance. Changes to metadata are instantaneously propagated to all user interfaces. Changes are made once and only in one location, ensuring hassle-free maintenance.

MicroStrategy Mobile leverages the MicroStrategy platform’s superior performance and scalability functionality and provides rapid answers to tens of thousands of users through their mobile devices. Performance is further enhanced by efficiently caching reports and dashboards locally on the mobile devices.

MicroStrategy's acclaimed administration tools provide the administration efficiencies needed to deploy mobile applications to hundreds of thousands of users, while providing the industry's lowest total cost of ownership.

lIMIteD

Microsoft suggests that IT developers resize reports for mobile viewing. This requires IT staff to create and maintain multiple copies of reports for viewing on different interfaces, which increases IT workload and creates multiple versions of the truth.

Microsoft does not follow an object-oriented development paradigm. Most report components are stored within the report definition and do not support reusability across the entire BI platform. As a result, changes to common business definition must be applied in multiple places, manually, and redundantly. Mobile BI reports that are affected by the change will have to be manually modified and republished, resulting in tedious and frustrating manual maintenance and testing.

Microsoft does not provide the same level of advanced administration tools as MicroStrategy. Lack of object-oriented development, multiple overlapping BI components, and multiple points of administration create additional challenges. The end result is tedious and slow mobile application deployment, more administrative staff, and a higher TCO.

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security of Mobile BI

• Multi-level BI platform security extended to mobile devices

• Data protection on the mobile device

• Data transmission security

• Integration with enterprise-wide security infrastructure (single sign-on)

yes MicroStrategy Mobile utilizes the same sophisticated user authorization management framework available in theMicroStrategy BI platform. Authorization refers to the three-dimensional process by which the application determines:

• Application functionality privileges• Object access permissions• Data access security

MicroStrategy provides a Web-based mobile configuration interface that enables administrative control of password policies for the MicroStrategy BI platform. It also allows administrators to set a variety of local data caching options. Administrators can specify maximum cache size on the device, automatically wipe all locally cached data every time the app is closed, and set options for automatically rebuilding new caches for user subscriptions once the application is re-loaded. This ensures security of data that is stored locally on the device.

MicroStrategy’s BI platform provides an option to encrypt communications between its server components, such as between the MicroStrategy Intelligence Server and MicroStrategy Mobile Server, using an AES 128-bit algorithm.

lIMIteD

Microsoft does not have a robust mobile BI offering. Microsoft often positions companies like Extended Results (PushBI) as their technology partner for mobile BI. Microsoft partners may not be able to fully leverage the security infrastructure of the Microsoft BI platform. This could result in redundant maintenance and potential security breaches.

Microsoft’s multiple BI components create additional challenges as security infrastructure may have to be defined at multiple levels within the Microsoft BI platform.

Microsoft provides limited capabilities to cache reports, documents, and dashboards on mobile devices. As a result, offline analysis capabilities for business users are affected.

highly Interactive and Intuitive User experience

• Native mobile applications

• Device-specific actions

o Multi-touch

o App integration

o Sensor based query

o Mobile Info capture

• BI-specific features perfectly designed to work with device specific capabilities

o Drill anywhere

o Swipe to page-by

o Integrated mapping

o Rich visualizations

o Alerts through push notifications

o Prompting

o Subscriptions

• Offline analysis

yes MicroStrategy provides native apps for mobile devices. The native apps are designed to fully leverage mobile device capabilities including the multi-touch interface, sensors (GPS, camera, etc.), communications (voice, email, text), and more.

MicroStrategy Mobile apps provide a vast range of BI-specific functionality designed to leverage and work seamlessly with device capabilities. BI functionality includes integrated Google maps, out-of-the-box drill-anywhere, a vast library of advanced visualizations, and device-specific actions to perform tasks such as swiping (horizontally or vertically).

Users can page-by, set alerts for report refresh or data changes through push notifications, use intelligent prompting, metric swapping, and much more.

With MicroStrategy Mobile, reports are cached directly on the mobile devices for fast, offline viewing. Reports are fully interactive; data can be sliced and sorted; and columns can be locked, resized, and reordered for effective comparisons of metrics.

Users can subscribe to reports directly from their mobile devices and do not have to wait for IT to create subscriptions for them.

no Microsoft does not have a clear mobile BI strategy and does not support native iPhone, iPad, or Blackberry mobile applications.

Microsoft Office Mobile is designed to work on Windows Mobile devices. Microsoft does not have a dedicated client application with tools for sorting, drilling, pivoting, and page-by. The lack of a client application renders Microsoft BI mobile reports fairly static and non-interactive.

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app Development Platform

• Flexibility to create any information workflow

• Ability to deliver multiple forms of information through the mobile app

• Actionable mobile apps

yes The MicroStrategy app platform provides exceptional flexibility to create Mobile apps that can be used to create a very wide range of mobile applications that go above and beyond the boundaries of traditional BI without writing a single line of code.

MicroStrategy extends the boundaries of the mobile BI App by delivering multiple forms of information to users within the same app. Unstructured information like images, text, desktop publishing design, web content (web pages, videos), and more can also be included. In addition, MicroStrategy Mobile also provides an in-app PDF reader, email, browser, HTML containers, and optimized ePub handling.

MicroStrategy provides the ability to implement, and embed transactional capabilities into the information driven mobile apps. Using MicroStrategy Mobile, business users can not only monitor key business metrics, but also initiate appro-priate actions from within the mobile apps.

no Microsoft does not provide an app development platform. The use of mobile devices is limited to viewing traditional BI reports.

Microsoft does not provide the capabilities to deliver multiple forms of information through mobile devices.

Microsoft does not provide actionable mobile apps.

7. DeeP InsIght throUgh sUPerIor analytICs

MicroStrategy 9 allows users to freely investigate data and “surf” through the data warehouse without having to

design a new report for each new combination of data that a user wants to see. Users can create analytic metrics

leveraging a wide range of data mining algorithms, statistical, predictive, and OLAP functions, as well as capabilities

for metric grouping on-the-fly. Users can import complex statistical models from specialized third party data mining

applications. MicroStrategy’s unified platform ensures that all these analytic capabilities are available on any type of

report in the entire BI environment.

“ World-class analytics are important and MicroStrategy is a cost efficient way to address our expanding BI

requirement.” – Chief Executive Officer, eHarmony

Microstrategy Delivers Comprehensive analytics that are easy to Consume

Figure 9: Advanced Analytics can be Easily Incorporated into and Consumed through Reports, Dashboards and Scorecards.

Web Browser

Apple iPad

Segmentation Analysis

Trend Analysis

StatisticalAnalysis

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MicroStrategy’s ability to generate multi-pass SQL is a key element in providing analytically sophisticated business

intelligence applications. Multi-pass SQL is required to answer analytical questions that require several steps and

cannot be answered with a single SQL query block. MicroStrategy generates SQL that performs these multi-pass

queries as efficiently as possible for each particular database.

Iterative analysis is the dynamic mechanism that represents the continuous interaction and advanced analytical

techniques between the BI server and the database. MicroStrategy uses this approach when complex questions cannot

be answered using only the database. Not only does MicroStrategy automatically invoke iterative analysis when

required, it also dynamically decides the most optimal location to perform the calculations, based on its own strengths

and the database strengths, while minimizing data transfer.

“ MicroStrategy’s powerful analytics help us analyze sales performance across locations and model lines for

enhanced sales targeting and inventory management” – Manager, IT Systems, Porsche Cars North

America, Inc.


efficiently answer Complex Questions

• Multi-pass SQL

• Collaborative processing between analytical engine and RDBMS-based processing

• Reusable analysis objects (e.g., custom groups, consolidations, transformations, conditional metrics, sets)

• Support for complex definitions of analysis objects (e.g., conditional metrics with set conditions, custom groups defined with a mix of metric qualifications and attributes at different levels, set analysis with multi-attribute comparisons)

• All analytical capabilities available across all styles of BI

yes MicroStrategy’s ability to generate multi-pass SQL allows MicroStrategy to answer analytical questions that require several steps and cannot be answered with a single SQL query block.

MicroStrategy automatically uses collaborative processing between the BI server and the database when complex questions cannot be answered using only the database. MicroStrategy also dynamically decides the most optimal location to perform the calculations, based on its own strengths and the database strengths, while minimizing data transfer.

The MicroStrategy metadata supports a rich set of reusable analysis objects. In addition to attributes, metrics, and filters, complex objects such as custom groups and transformations can be created and reused in any report. The reusability of these analysis objects allows business users to answer sophisticated questions without requiring IT coding and promotes more efficient application development.

MicroStrategy’s analysis objects can be defined with a high degree of complexity. For example, a custom group can be based on a mix of metric qualifications and multiple attributes at different levels.

MicroStrategy’s analytical capabilities are provided by the BI platform instead of standalone capabilities in the front-end interface. As a result, all analytical capabilities are available across all styles of BI, and users can have any question answered in any type of report.

lIMIteD

Microsoft provides limited multi-pass SQL generation capabilities. As a result, complex analysis requires IT professionals to hard code queries. Hard coding demands much more IT effort to implement and maintain. This also creates challenges during the upgrade process.

Microsoft requires IT programmers to define most of the report logic in the Report Definition Language (RDL). Report developers must define these RDL definitions for each report and the reusability of complex business logic definitions is very limited. Redefining business logic creates a heavy IT workload and an environment that is IT intensive to maintain and administer.

Microsoft provides very limited capabilities for creating and reusing complex analysis objects like conditional metrics with set conditions, custom groups defined with a mix of metric qualifications and attributes at different levels, and set analysis with multi-attribute comparisons.

The analytical capabilities supported by different BI components within the BI platform are different. For example, Excel supports more analytical capabilities as compared to Report Builder.

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sophisticated Predictive analytics

• Single unified platform provides data mining scoring capabilities

• Open platform and cross-vendor interoperability via PMML

• Seamless integration of predictive analytics with casual reporting

• Support for popular predictive analytic algorithms (e.g., Linear Regression, Logistic Regression, Tree-Regression, Clustering, Decision Tree, Association Rules, Time Series)

• Support for complex algorithms (e.g., Neural Network, Rule Set, Support Vector Machine, Ensembles of Models)

• Member of the Data Mining Group, a data mining standards-setting organization

yes The MicroStrategy BI platform delivers data mining and predictive analytics to all users through a fully unified and integrated enterprise-caliber BI system. MicroStrategy Data Mining Services enables organizations to maximize their investment in data mining products by importing their Predictive Model Markup Language (PMML) and seamlessly encapsulating the model as a predictive metric for use with any report or document.

Report designers and analysts can view and build predictive reports using MicroStrategy and then distribute these reports to all relevant decision makers and stakeholders. Business analysts can perform further analysis – slicing-and-dicing data, creating ad hoc reports, drilling, pivoting, and sorting – on predictive reports. All users continue to inherit all the object reuse, security, administrative, and manageability benefits of the MicroStrategy BI platform.

MicroStrategy data mining scoring capabilities support cross-vendor interoperability. MicroStrategy supports PMML from SPSS, KXEN, SAS, Salford Systems, Oracle, ANGOSS, FairIsaac, StatSoft and R.

MicroStrategy is an active member of the Data Mining Group, providing guidance and leadership to set the PMML standards for the data mining industry.

lIMIteD

Microsoft can perform data mining using either Microsoft SQL Server Data Mining Add-Ins for Excel or using SQL Server Analysis Services. Excel, by itself, does not perform data mining. Instead, data mining is performed on the Analysis Services server and results are returned to Excel.

Microsoft provides limited interoperability via PMML. PMML importing is supported only for Decision Trees and Clustering algorithms. In order to load models trained using different tools and saved in PMML format, Microsoft requires a plug-in algorithm. Creating plug-in algorithms is a complex process. Plug-in algorithm can be implemented as a managed class library using a .NET language.

Microsoft supports limited data mining capabilities. For example, Microsoft supports classification trees (but not regression trees) and distribution based clustering (but no distance based models). Support for complex algorithms like Neural Networks and Support Vector Machines is also very limited.

The loose integration between the different BI components makes it difficult to seamlessly integrate data mining and predictive analysis capabilities into casual reporting.

MicroStrategy is a “full member” of the Data Mining Group. Microsoft is not as active, indicating their lack of focus on data mining functionality.

8. flexIBle teChnology for DePartMental to enterPrIse BI

Increasingly, departments want their own islands of departmental BI because they need the flexibility and speed

offered by smaller systems that are unencumbered by inter-departmental coordination, budgeting allocations,

and project prioritization. On the other hand, CFOs and CIOs want enterprise BI systems because they offer a

single “version of the truth” and the lowest cost of ownership. With MicroStrategy 9, companies can have both.

MicroStrategy’s flexible BI platform provides multi-source data access, rapid application development, and seamless

migration from departmental to enterprise BI.

33

Microstrategy 9 supports a gradual and Incremental Migration from Islands of BI into a Consolidated

enterprise BI system

Enterprise DW

HR Dept Sales Dept

HR Sales

Enterprise

Finance Dept

Fin

HR Dept Sales Dept

Enterprise HR Sales

Finance Dept HR Dept Sales Dept

Enterprise DWEnterprise DW

HR Dept Sales DeptFinance Dept

Fin

Finance DeptFinance Dept

Fin

Finance Dept

Enterprise

Stage 1Disparate Islands of BI

All Running on MicroStrategy BI

Stage 2Merging Islands of BI

Using MicroStrategy Multi-source

Stage 3Consolidating Data

Re-pointing Metadata to the EDW

HR Sales

Figure 10: MicroStrategy Technology Provides a Seamless Migration Path from Departmental BI to Enterprise BI

“ Organizations need to gradually and incrementally consolidate their departmental and workgroup islands of

BI into a cohesive enterprise framework that ensures a single “version of the truth” and low cost of operation.

MicroStrategy is directly addressing this challenge with MicroStrategy 9, which contains an In-memory BI and

Multi-source BI capability that will make MicroStrategy’s enterprise-caliber technology equally suitable for

workgroup BI and departmental BI. MicroStrategy’s new platform includes capabilities that allow consolidation

and transformation of departmental and workgroup islands of BI without having to redo reports or dashboards

as consolidation takes place.” – Chief Executive Officer and Executive Vice President Research, Ventana

Research


seamless Migration from Departmental to enterprise BI

• Metadata compatibility enables consolidation of islands of information

• Metadata abstraction layer enables seamless re-pointing of the data source without affecting the business model

• Advanced migration and environment management tools

yes MicroStrategy’s metadata compatibility enables departments to incrementally migrate their business logic into a consolidated BI environment.

MicroStrategy’s metadata abstraction layer allows companies to “re-point” the metadata to automatically access new data locations without disrupting reports or requiring redesign.

MicroStrategy Object Manager can automatically consolidate disparate departmental BI applications while reconciling all overlaps or conflicts that may arise.

no Microsoft does not provide a unified metadata layer that can be used across the entire BI platform. The lack of a unified metadata layer results in difficulty, complexity, and high costs when customers try to consolidate departmental applications.

Microsoft does not offer robust migration tools that can be used to automatically consolidate different departmental deployments. Multiple overlapping tools that are loosely integrated with one another further increases the complexity of consolidating multiple departmental applications.

34


high Performing Multi-source Data access

• Unified multi-dimensional business model across multiple data sources

• Optimized retrieval of multi-source data

• Smart Push-Down architecture

• Automatic multi-source drill anywhere

• Support for distributed workload database architectures

• Direct access to multi-dimensional data sources including SAP® BW InfoCubes and QueryCubes, Hyperion Essbase, and Microsoft Analysis Services.

• Direct reporting from salesforce.com

yes MicroStrategy’s unified multi-dimensional business model allows companies to create a single logical view spanning multiple data sources, making it easy to add new data sources. Users are able to seamlessly drill across multiple data sources.

MicroStrategy optimizes the retrieval of data from heterogeneous data sources. MicroStrategy dynamically selects the most efficient data source to query. The MicroStrategy SQL engine automatically creates queries optimized for each data source for fast performance without IT tuning efforts.

MicroStrategy’s Smart Push-Down architecture performs joins at the database layer thereby minimizing network traffic and leveraging the power of modern database engines. MicroStrategy further minimizes network traffic by moving the least amount of data to the most optimal database.

lIMIteD

Although Microsoft’s Unified Dimensional Model allows data to be accessed from multiple data sources, data must mainly be accessed from Microsoft Analysis Services. The current lack of more open data access in Microsoft Reporting Services through Report Builder is a big limitation. In addition, Excel or PowerPivot is typically used for performing analysis on local data sources that are not integrated with the enterprise-wide BI semantic layer, creating administration challenges and resulting in multiple versions of the truth and spreadmart problems.

Microsoft lacks MicroStrategy’s automatic multi-source drill anywhere capabilities that allow users to drill across hierarchies, for example, from a region to customers. Microsoft’s lack of automatic drill-anywhere capability prevents users from leveraging all of their organization’s data assets and limits end user analysis efficiency.

Microsoft Analysis Services cubes pre-calculate all possible combinations of data. Bringing in this unnecessarily large amount of data across the network increases network traffic and decreases response time.

rapid Departmental BI application Development

• No need for a data warehouse or ETL tool

• Graphical and intuitive design interface to minimize IT effort

• Automatic detection wizard for creation of business logic and table mappings

• Pre-created templates for quick project and dashboard development

• Command line administrative tool for high volume tasks

• Comprehensive data model support

yes MicroStrategy 9 provides easy access to multiple data sources without requiring a data warehouse. MicroStrategy can instantiate In-memory ROLAP cubes by pulling information from multiple sources, obviating the need of an ETL tool or a data warehouse.

MicroStrategy’s graphical design interface makes it fast and easy to add new data sources and define business logic. A set of pre-created templates speed dashboard development.

MicroStrategy automatically detects data types from data sources and creates the entire business logic layer, speeding development.

MicroStrategy provides a scripting interface that allows project developers to schedule massive and repetitive tasks in a matter of seconds.

lIMIteD

Microsoft requires heavy IT effort to develop a Business Intelligence environment. Building and deploying Analysis Services cubes requires substantial training, as well as IT development time. IT resources represent the largest cost component in multi-year Business Intelligence lifecycle ownership expenditures. As a result, many customers find Microsoft’s IT-intensive development cost prohibitive.

Use of Excel and PowerPivot for end user reporting is heavily dependent on SharePoint as well as SQL Server components. For example, in order to create and share a PowerPivot workbook, users will have to first create a PowerPivot workbook and publish it to SharePoint to share it with other users. The PowerPivot workbook published to SharePoint is deployed as an Analysis Services cube. In order to use PowerPivot for departmental deployments IT may have to first install and configure SharePoint and Analysis Services.

Microsoft offers limited automation of high-volume tasks through a command line administration tool. Lack of a centralized scripting tool translates into higher administrative efforts.

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Centralized and De-Centralized administration

• Web-based administration for business managers

• Allows distribution of administrative tasks, including object promotion, data integrity checking, and user management

• Update Packages allow distributed development

yes MicroStrategy 9 allows user and application administration responsibilities to be distributed to business people within individual departments using a Web interface. This offloads administrative tasks from centralized IT personnel and gives departments the ability to have their own databases, their own BI applications, and their own metadata within the same infrastructure as the enterprise BI environment.

MicroStrategy 9 Update Packages can automatically consolidate disparate development teams’ updates and changes.

lIMIteD

Microsoft requires several administration points for its BI platform components including: SQL Server Analysis Services, SQL Server Reporting Services SharePoint Server, and PerformancePoint. Multiple components and multiple points of administration dramatically increase administration complexity and prevent Microsoft from allowing centralized distribution of all administrative tasks.

Microsoft does not offer update packages that can consolidate different teams’ development efforts.

III. MicroStrategy – A Market Proven, Industrial-Strength Technology

MicroStrategy 9 is an advanced technology that allows companies to support all types of BI applications with one

technology. MicroStrategy 9 builds on MicroStrategy’s heritage of high-end BI and further extends the boundaries of

performance, scalability, and efficiency of enterprise BI. At the same time, MicroStrategy 9 brings that same enterprise-

caliber BI technology easily within reach of smaller departmental BI initiatives. Just as importantly, MicroStrategy 9

provides a smooth migration path for islands of departmental BI to merge into a cohesive and consistent enterprise-

wide framework. With MicroStrategy 9, even as departmental BI applications are consolidated into the enterprise-wide

framework, the departments can continue to retain significant autonomy and nimbleness that they enjoyed previously.

“Today, organizations need a business intelligence solution that can support user self-sufficiency and can

respond more quickly and effectively to local business needs. MicroStrategy 9 provides end users with more

control over the analysis and reports they create and helps them to be more self-sufficient, require far less

IT support, and quickly adapt to changing business requirements.” – Wayne Eckerson, Director of TDWI

Research at The Data Warehousing Institute

Unlike BI suites offered by other vendors, MicroStrategy offers the only organically grown BI architecture. All of

the MicroStrategy 9 components were expressly built to work within a unified architecture and not as separate

standalone products or acquired technologies that were subsequently joined together. This caliber of BI technology

is now being sought after by companies, not solely for their most demanding BI applications, but for the purpose of

hosting all of their BI applications. Today, companies can standardize all BI into a single, highly-functional, efficient

architecture and reap significant economies of scale and enterprise-wide consistency.

MicroStrategy Incorporated • 1850 Towers Crescent Plaza • Tysons Corner, VA 22182 • 1.888.537.8135 • www.microstrategy.com COLL-0879 0511