MicroStrategy vs. Information Builders. A Comparison White Paper by MicroStrategy

Transcription

1 MicroStrategy vs. Information Builders A Comparison White Paper by MicroStrategy

2 This White Paper reflects the views, opinions and conclusions of MicroStrategy Incorporated ( MicroStrategy ) and other contributors to this White Paper. This White Paper is provided as is and without express or limited warranty of any kind by either MicroStrategy or anyone who has been involved in the creation, production or distribution of this White Paper (collectively, Contributors ), including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. Neither MicroStrategy nor Contributors makes any warranty, express or implied, concerning the accuracy, correctness, completeness or adequacy of any information that is provided in this White Paper. The entire risk with respect to the use of, or reliance on, this White Paper is with you. Should this White Paper prove inaccurate or erroneous (in whole or in part), you (and not MicroStrategy or Contributors) assume the entire risk for all costs related to the use of this White Paper. 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All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated. Specifications subject to change without notice. MicroStrategy is not responsible for errors or omissions. MicroStrategy makes no warranties or commitments concerning the availability of future products or versions that may be planned or under development. 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. 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3 MicroStrategy vs. Information Builders I. Executive Summary... 2 II. Comparison of MicroStrategy 9 and WebFocus on the Key BI Capabilities Delivering More BI with Less IT Effort - MicroStrategy Delivers the Lowest TCO All User Needs through a Single Platform Self-Service Through a Fast and Intuitive User Experience High Performance at Any Scale Quick to Implement and Deploy, Easy to Maintain and Administer Highly Interactive and Flexible Mobile Intelligence Deep Insight through Superior Analytics Flexible Technology for Departmental to Enterprise BI III. MicroStrategy A Market Proven, Industrial-Strength Technology *Note: This document is a competitive analysis of MicroStrategy 9 Release 3.2 and Information Builders WebFocus v8, the latest version of each application at the time of this analysis. From this point on, MicroStrategy 9 Release 3.2 will generally be referred to as simply MicroStrategy or MicroStrategy 9. Information Builders WebFocus 8 will be interchangeably referred to as WebFocus 8, WebFocus 8, and WebFocus.

4 I. Executive Summary In the business intelligence (BI) marketplace, MicroStrategy competes vigorously with vendors such as Information Builders. At first glance, it would seem that companies can use either MicroStrategy 9 or WebFocus 8 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 WebFocus. 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. Nonorganic BI architectures, like WebFocus, 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 inmemory 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 multisource 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 zerofootprint Web interface, innovative mobile application platform, and proven user and data scalability. This document discusses in detail the key differences between MicroStrategy 9 and Information Builders WebFocus 8. 2

5 II. Comparison of MicroStrategy 9 and WebFocus 8 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.5 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. WebFocus provides very limited metadata reusability so report developers have to spend more time redundantly creating report objects, resulting in a higher TCO. WebFocus end users have limited self-service capabilities and are heavily dependent on IT, requiring more IT administrators and a greater degree of hard coding. There are no out-of-the-box tracking and auditing tools that allow WebFocus administrators to centrally monitor and manage BI applications, thus requiring more administrators per number of end users. 2. All User Needs through a Single Platform... pg.9 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. In WebFocus, most metadata information is dispersed in numerous proprietary files (based on functionality) that are difficult to maintain. Accordingly, different styles of BI require different user interfaces. Developers are forced to use many different interfaces to build different types of reports that can lead to multiple versions of the truth. 3. Self-Service Through a Fast and Intuitive Web Interface... pg.14 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. WebFocus continues to force users to use FOCUS scripting. Though basic report formatting can be conducted with various tools, more complex formatting and layout requirements typically require the report developer to write FOCUS code. WebFocus does not provide the full extent of self-service that MicroStrategy does and WebFocus users more often require IT assistance for report development. 4. High Performance at Any Scale...pg.17 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. WebFocus OLAP technology is much less efficient than MicroStrategy s combination of ROLAP with a 64-bit operating system. The WebFocus OLAP engine does not provide the ability to run multi-pass SQL or leverage in-memory temporary tables and therefore forces many calculations to be 3

6 performed in the middle-tier server. This does not leverage the database to the fullest extent possible, and results in unnecessary network and hardware resource utilization. 5. Quick to Implement and Deploy, Easy to Maintain and Administer...pg.21 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. Gartner s survey customers rated Information Builders product difficult to implement, migrate, and use. WebFocus lacks a common reusable metadata layer that is shared across documents. This creates a maintenance challenge as developers are typically forced to continually and manually synchronize metric, calculation, and filter definitions across documents. 6. Highly Interactive and Flexible Mobile Intelligence... pg.24 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. WebFocus does not fully leverage the device-specific capabilities for the iphone or ipad because the WebFocus Mobile solution uses a thin-client (pure browser-based) architecture. Creating and deploying rich Mobile BI applications using WebFocus requires extensive development efforts. 7. Deep Insight through Superior Analytics... pg.29 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. WebFocus does not have automatic drill anywhere capabilities and drilling across hierarchies or reports requires IT hard coding for each report. 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. WebFocus does not have a tool equivalent to Object Manager to aid in consolidating and reconciling disparate departmental BI applications into an enterprise-wide BI. The following section of the white paper provides a side-by-side detailed evaluation of MicroStrategy 9 and Information Builders WebFocus along the key BI capabilities discussed above. 4

7 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). Three-Year Total Cost of Ownership is Dominated by IT Personnel Costs Three-Year Total Cost of Ownership Breakdown Server Hardware (7%) IT Staff Training (8%) Outsourced Costs (3%) Software (7%) Downtime User Productivity (15%) Staffing (60%) Source: IDC 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. 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. 5

8 MicroStrategy Ranked #1 for Administration Efficiency MicroStrategy Ranked #1 for Administration Efficiency arplan 1.18 Bissantz 0.39 Board 1.02 Cubeware 0.55 IBM Cognos Analysis N/A IBM Cognos Reporting 1.72 IBM Cognos TM1 Information Builders Infor PM Jedox PALO N/A N/A N/A N/A Microsoft SSAS 0.59 Microsoft SSRS N/A MicroStrategy 2.40 MIK 1.96 Oracle BIEE Oracle Hyperion Pentaho N/A N/A N/A QlikTech 0.71 SAP BO Webl 2.16 SAP BO Deskl SAP BW/ BEx Suite SAS TARGIT N/A N/A 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 requiring less redundancy, because end users have more self-service capabilities that offload work from IT staff, and because MicroStrategy provides a comprehensive set of administrative tools requiring fewer IT administrators. 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. 6

9 KEY COST REDUCING CAPABILITY MICROSTRATEGY 9 INFORMATION BUILDERS WEB FOCUS 8 Dynamic Report Personalization 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. The WebFocus platform provides the ability to create reports in which users are prompted to pick data fields to place on a report. However, richer prompt types like hierarchy prompts and level prompts are not supported by WebFocus, limiting the range of ad hoc reports that developers can create for end users. WebFocus InfoAssist has the ability to create new computed fields from preexisting data fields. WebFocus InfoAssist does not provide report consumers the ability to create and add derived elements (i.e. row groupings) to a report on-the-fly. Automatic Multi-source Drill Anywhere Business users can automatically drill anywhere to any data source without IT hard coding. NO No automatic drill anywhere and drilling across hierarchies requires IT hard coding for each report. Minimizing Design Effort Formatting over the Web Easy What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) formatting allows business users to format reports at runtime without IT support. Drilling down is available but not automatically when a new report is created, as reports created in the WebFocus platform must be explicitly OLAP-enabled. Multi-selecting and drilling on multiple items is not available in the WebFocus platform. Basic pixel perfect reports can be built in WebFocus using graphical layout tools such as InfoAssist, PowerPainter, or Report Assistant. More complex formatting and layout requirements typically require the report developer to write FOCUS code. One Repository of Reusable Business Logic Report developers can reuse all existing business logic across the entire platform rather than spending time recreating business logic. NO There is no one single repository of reusable business logic, resulting in a higher TCO. Visual Analysis for Rapid Decision Making MicroStrategy Visual Insight allows business users to intuitively visualize, filter, and drill into their data. The drag-anddrop, WYSIWYG interface allows business users to make data driven decision quickly and without any IT involvement. WebFocus Visual Discovery is an inmemory analytics solution with data visualization capabilities, however the visual design process in Visual Discovery module (an OEM from Advizor Solutions) is not as intuitive and automatic as in MicroStrategy Visual Insight. 7

10 Minimizing Deployment Effort KEY COST REDUCING CAPABILITY Easy to Customize and Upgrade Automated Deployment MICROSTRATEGY 9 INFORMATION BUILDERS WEB FOCUS 8 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. WebFocus is more difficult to implement, migrate, and use. The components of the WebFocus platform generally are able to communicate without specific development effort to tie the components together. However, for moderately complex applications, the WebFocus architecture is largely dependent on writing FOCUS code to develop the BI application and reference different files and components of the WebFocus infrastructure. Automated life cycle management tool WebFocus does not offer a synchronizes objects across development, comprehensive tool like MicroStrategy test, and production environments thus Object Manager for automated life cycle greatly reducing manual work associated management and consolidation and with BI deployments. reconciliation of disparate departmental BI applications. Data Import from the Web Interfact MicroStrategy Data Import functionality is for business users and provides the ability to easily import data from local files or relational databases and quickly convert them into dashboards or visualizations without any IT involvement. There are no file size constraints. The Upload Data File utility allows you to import data from a local file and access it through any of the WebFocus reporting tools, including Report Painter, HTML RA, HTML GA, HTML Layout Painter. Single Server A centralized server dramatically reduces administrative effort and complexity. Minimizing Administration Effort Single Point of Administration Out-of-the-Box System-wide Monitoring Administrators need to create users and security settings once and these settings apply to the entire MicroStrategy platform without requiring duplicate IT efforts. 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. WebFocus provides a single point of administration. NO There is no Out-of-the-Box System-wide Monitoring. Automated Scripting Control Reduces repetitive and time consuming administrative tasks through automated command line scripts. WebFocus does not provide a comprehensive command line administrative tool for high volume tasks, making administration across BI applications more time consuming. 8

11 Minimizing Maintenance Effort KEY COST REDUCING CAPABILITY Automated Report and Data Integrity Checking Highly Reusable Business Metadata Scalable In-Memory ROLAP Architecture Automatic Change Management MICROSTRATEGY 9 INFORMATION BUILDERS WEB FOCUS 8 MicroStrategy administrators can uncover inconsistencies or errors before business users see them while reducing 98% of manual regression testing efforts. 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. MicroStrategy customers can instantly leverage multiple types of data assets with a powerful in memory technology. 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. Administrators have limited ability to automate report and data integrity checking tasks. NO WebFocus provides limited metadata reusability. This forces report developers to spend more time redundantly creating report objects and results in a higher TCO. Information Builders product lacks a scalable In-memory ROLAP technology to provide an instant reporting database across multiple data sources. Information Builders only provides support for dynamic sourcing capabilities that leverage Inmemory ROLAP cubes. WebFocus does not use multi-pass SQL and in-memory temporary tables thus missing opportunities to improve scalability and performance. WebFocus does not provide out-of-thebox tracking and change auditing in the metadata. MicroStrategy s change journaling feature allows users to document and track changes to metadata objects. 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. 9

12 Five Styles of Business Intelligence Through a Single Platform Scorecards & Dashboards Opera4onal Dashboards Dynamic Scorecards Metrics Management Enterprise Repor4ng Page perfect Opera4onal Repor4ng Pixel perfect Business Repor4ng Print perfect Statements & Invoices OLAP Analysis & Visual Explora4on Visual Explora4on Slice & Dice Inves4ga4ve Analysis Root Cause Determina4on Data Mining & Predic4ve Analysis Ad Hoc Analysis Predic4ve Analysis Data Mining Mobile Apps & Aler4ng Mobile Applica4ons Massive Informa4on Distribu4on ipad, iphone, BlackBerry, Excep4on based Alerts 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. 10

13 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 INFORMATION BUILDERS WEBFOCUS 8 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 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 multipanel 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. Basic enterprise reports can be built in WebFocus using graphical layout tools such as InfoAssist, PowerPainter, or Report Assistant. More complex formatting and layout requirements typically require the report developer to write FOCUS code. WebFocus InfoAssist gives users basic capabilities to layout grids and graphs on reports. However, custom development is typically required to provide interactivity common in dashboards, such as selectors and panels. Custom development is also typically required to provide complex layout logic. 11

14 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 INFORMATION BUILDERS WEBFOCUS 8 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 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 MicroStrategy 9 provides an out-of-thebox 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. 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. WebFocus' much more limited visualization capabilities hamper its ability to provide the impactful presentation of important trends and the identification of outliers in large volumes of data. No automatic drilling from visualizations. WebFocus offers significantly less reporting functionality and flexibility. Basic enterprise reports can be built in WebFocususing graphical layout tools such as InfoAssist, PowerPainter, or Report Assistant. More complex formatting and layout requirements typically require the report developer to write FOCUS code. 12

15 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 INFORMATION BUILDERS WEBFOCUS 8 Information Delivery and Proactive Notification Ability to self-subscribe and subscribe others to report deliveries Alerting and thresholds Wide range of output types: Web, , 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 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 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, , 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-thebox, 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. 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. Information Builders product supports basic capabilities for information delivery and notification. Drilling down is available but not automatically when a new report is created, as reports created in the WebFocus platform must be explicitly OLAP-enabled. Multi-selecting and drilling on multiple items is not possible in the WebFocus platform. 13

16 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 INFORMATION BUILDERS WEBFOCUS 8 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 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. WebFocus delivers the reporting and analysis environment to Microsoft Excel but it can only export reports and charts to PowerPoint, and Word. 3. self-service through a fast and intuitive USER EXPERIENCE 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. 14

17 MicroStrategy Provides End Users with a Fast and Intuitive User Experience Add/Remove Add/Remove Attributes A*ributes Metrics Easily filter Filter data Many Views Drop Zones for multidimensional mulcdimensional analysis Visually analyze Analyze Data data or use OLAP enabled Grids grids 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 IT Specialist at Silverstar Casinos partner. 15

18 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 INFORMATION BUILDERS WEBFOCUS 8 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 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 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 rightclick 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. 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. Gartner s survey customers rated Information Builders WebFocus as being more difficult to implement, migrate and use. WebFocus end users, with consumer and recipient roles, get a dynamic view of reports only in WebFocus Info Assist. WebFocus tools provide limited pixel-level positioning of report objects over the report layout. More complex formatting and layout requirements typically require the report developer to write FOCUS code. 16

19 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 INFORMATION BUILDERS WEBFOCUS 8 Advanced Self-Service Functionality Data Import Visual Insight Instant Response to User Actions Extreme AJAX Web interface High degree of client-side processing while maintaining a zero-footprint Web client 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. 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. WebFocus does support local file imports, and allows you to import data from a text file and access it through any of the WebFocus reporting tools, including Report Painter, HTML RA, HTML GA, HTML Layout Painter, but there are significant constraints on the file formats WebFocus supports. WebFocus supports only two file formats: Excel files and delimited text files. The visual design process in Visual Discovery module (an OEM from Advizor Solutions) is not as intuitive and automatic as in MicroStrategy Visual Insight. WebFocus report consumers get dynamic reports, but report development and usage isn t as smooth as in MicroStrategy. Report and dashboard development can be more complicated, which is why more complex functionality requires coding in the WebFocus script. 17

20 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 INFORMATION BUILDERS WEBFOCUS 8 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 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. WebFocus allows users to select attributes and metrics, but does not have other prompt types like hierarchy prompts, and level prompts. 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 18

21 In-memory BI Fills a Void in the Performance Curve of a BI System BEFORE IN-MEMORY BI AFTER IN-MEMORY BI Database Query Slower Response Time Database Query Output Caching Report Caching Data Set Caching Faster Response Time Output Caching Report Caching In-memory Query Data Set Caching In-memory On-Disk In-memory On-Disk Caching Query Caching Query 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 multidimensional 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 Supporting Hub and Spoke Data Architectures Balance the Workload Across Databases MicroStrategy Virtual Cube MicroStrategy Virtual Cube MySQL DB2 Netezza SQL Server Sybase IQ SQL Server Teradata Marketing Data Mart Mfg Data Mart Enterprise Data Whse Financial Data Mart Sales Data Mart Lookups, Aggregates, Summary Data Enterprise Data Warehouse 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. 19

22 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 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 INFORMATION BUILDERS WEBFOCUS 8 Quick Response Time In-memory ROLAP Dynamic sourcing Dynamic multi-level caching 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 timeconsuming 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 Inmemory 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. WebFocus provides OLAP technology which is much less efficient than MicroStrategy s combination of ROLAP with a 64-bit operating system. Data caching is limited in the WebFocus platform. In WebFocus, HOLD files can be used to attempt to simulate caching, but there are major differences. The use of HOLD files to minimize database queries is not automatic and requires manual development efforts - to create the HOLD files and to point reports to the HOLD files. This generally becomes a tactical or point solution for specific reports. The WebFocus platform does not automatically create report caches that are shared between users, negatively impacting overall system performance. The WebFocus caching engine cannot automatically utilize existing HOLD file data sets or persisted scheduled reports for subset reports based on a master report. 20

23 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 INFORMATION BUILDERS WEBFOCUS 8 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 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 finetuning 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 databasespecific tuning parameters. Global SQL query optimization algorithms optimize complex queries to reduce the number of SQL passes, providing further performance improvement to queries. Limited Multisource implemented with a push - down architecture - Information Builders and 3rd party EII tools typically pull data from different sources, and join data in the mid-tier. 21

24 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 INFORMATION BUILDERS WEBFOCUS 8 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 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. The Information Builders platform provides 64- bit processing. 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. 22

25 MicroStrategy Allows Report Designers to Create Reusable Metadata Components Range of Metadata Elements Used in Reports REPORT DESIGN Layout Format Calculations MicroStrategy Report- Specific Components Other BI Technologies REPORT COMPONENTS Parameterization Templates Filters Autostyles BUSINESS ABSTRACTION Metrics Hierarchies Custom Groupings Transformations Reusable Metadata Components Report- Specific Components DATA ABSTRACTION Attributes Facts Tables Aliases Reusable Metadata 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 IT Specialist, Silverstar Casino innovation. 23

26 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 INFORMATION BUILDERS WEBFOCUS 8 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 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 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. 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. The product suite relies on separate sets of metadata. Most metadata information is dispersed in numerous proprietary files that are difficult to maintain. ReportCaster has its own separate metadata repository stored in a relational database. Different styles of BI require different user interfaces. Developers are forced to use many different interfaces to build different types of reports. In the WebFocus platform, some metadata objects like the semantic layer and reports are shared across tools and users. However, many other metadata abstractions, like filters, cannot be created by the end user and shared as standalone reusable objects outside of the report without coding. The inability to create centralized and reusable metadata objects leads to redundant development work and risk of multiple versions of the truth. A change to a simple business rule can therefore require making changes to hundreds or even thousands of reports and will likely lead to significant workload. Report objects defined outside of master files, such as metric calculations and filters, cannot be reused nor embedded in other report components. Report objects must often be redundantly defined across reports, resulting in inefficient development and maintenance effort and increasing the risk of multiple versions of the truth. A standard methodology is hard to implement since each developer can create their independent versions of objects in reports. A WebFocus developer must usually manually inspect report and procedure definitions one-by-one to trace a report to its source and to examine associated business rules and data transformations. 24

27 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 INFORMATION BUILDERS WEBFOCUS 8 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 MicroStrategy s centralized administration provides a single console for real-time user and system management. Administrators can view and perform tasks on many systemwide 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. WebFocus does provide a centralized administration console for system management. Although it is possible to perform analysis on usage statistics, the number of statistic measures gathered is limited. Real-time usage monitoring is also not possible. There are no tools to facilitate project lifecycle management. WebFocus does not have out-of-the-box tracking and auditing of changes in the metadata. WebFocus relies on a 3rd party version control system (SourceSafe) to maintain version control of WebFocus metadata files (e.g., schema, reports). For more granular objects (e.g., dimensions, metrics, formulas, or filters) which do not exist as standalone files, WebFocus does not automatically track object changes out of the box. 25

28 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 INFORMATION BUILDERS WEBFOCUS 8 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 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 precalculations 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. 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, rowlevel, table-level, and database-level. A single In-memory ROLAP Cube supports multiple languages so that resources are used efficiently. Row and column-level access security requires a WebFocus administrator to manually code the security definitions into the WebFocus master files. Report-level access security requires the administrator to assign security using another interface, in Managed Reporting. Also, WebFocus Managed Reporting provides fewer than 10 privileges to assign to users, compared to the dozens available in MicroStrategy. Overall, the multiple interfaces required to manage security, as well as the lack of granularity in the privileges that can be assigned to users, make security management both time consuming and lacking in flexibility. WebFocus OOTB allows users to be authenticated against Active Directory. However, some customization is needed for Active Directory users to be imported into WebFocus MRE, or for Active Directory users to be linked to existing WebFocus MRE users. Information Builders' WebFocus and iway software support integration solutions for a range of cultures and languages and locales. 26

29 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 INFORMATION BUILDERS WEBFOCUS 8 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 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. Gartner s survey customers rated it more difficult to implement, migrate, and use. Moderately complex WebFocus deployments typically require at least some manual FOCUS coding to provide all the required application functionality. Because of the proprietary nature of the FOCUS programming language, new developer resources often require a lot of time to learn to use WebFocus to build BI applications. 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 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. 27

30 Consolidated Balance: $ 6, Next Payment Due: $ 1, Due Date: April 15, 2010 See card details 1 card close to limit Large Charges 7 charges in this period Spend by expense category Rewards Information Special offers just for you $1,500,000 $1,250,000 $1,000,000 $750,000 $500,000 $250,000 $ Q1 Inventory Turns vs Profit Trend 2009 Q Q Q Q Q Q Q4 Inventory Turns Gross Profit 1,500 1,250 1, 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 ipad 1:55 PM 100% Card Home Welcome Joyce L. Fowler Summary as of April 1, 2010 Pay Bill Gross Profit (USD) Inventory Turns 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, , 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-andclick 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. Figure 8: MicroStrategy Mobile Intelligence Provides Exceptional Flexibility to Create a Wide Range of Mobile Apps. 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 28

31 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 INFORMATION BUILDERS WEBFOCUS 8 Enterprise Grade Mobile Application Single version of the truth Minimum development efforts Minimum maintenance efforts Superior performance and scalability Minimum administration efforts 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, pointand-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. WebFocus lacks the extent of enterprise efficiency that MicroStrategy offers. MicroStrategy s performance, scalability, object-oriented development, ease of maintenance, automatic change propagation, and administration tools provide the enterprise efficiencies required for rolling out large scale mobile applications. Information Builders uses a pure browser based, thin-client architecture. Mobile Favorites enables reports to be shared across devices and content to be delivered to mobile devices without changing underlying infrastructures. No additional hardware is required. There is no device software to support reports are delivered directly to a device's browser. 29

32 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 INFORMATION BUILDERS WEBFOCUS 8 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) MicroStrategy Mobile utilizes the same sophisticated user authorization management framework available in the MicroStrategy BI platform. Authorization refers to the threedimensional 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. WebFocus provides a secure connection through mobile device and virtual protocol networks (VPNs). Managed Reporting is used to manage user access and any Managed Reporting user can be given access to mobile content. 30

33 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 INFORMATION BUILDERS WEBFOCUS 8 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 MicroStrategy provides native apps for mobile devices. The native apps are designed to fully leverage mobile device capabilities including the multitouch interface, sensors (GPS, camera, etc.), communications (voice, , 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. IBI supports only basic filtering and sorting from the mobile device. Other BI specific functionality like drill-anywhere, swipe to page-by, prompting using the native controls, etc. is not supported. Information Builders does not fully leverage the device-specific capabilities. For example, app integration is limited to only , mobile information capture is not supported, and sensor based query is not supported. Information Builders claims that WebFocus Mobile Favorites product suite includes native capabilities for Apple and Android devices but: Prompting is limited to a drop-down menu. Does not use native controls for prompting Visualizations designed for mobile interfaces are limited to delivering traditional BI content. Interactive controls are limited to basic interactions using a drop- down menu. WebFocus provides limited app integration capabilities Limited Integrated Mapping No automatic drill anywhere and drilling across hierarchies requires IT hard coding per report. No Swipe to page by No Metric swapping Mobile Favorites, a browser-based product, uses Information Builders' Active Technology capabilities. WebFocus can detect device type and resizes the views, but not as accurately as MicroStrategy s device-specific native app. alerts for content updates alerts let users know that content in their My Mobile Favorites folder has been modified. WebFocus allows users to select report (HTML, PDF, and Excel) which may be limited by their device's capabilities. Mobile reports are launched from a link either in an or a bookmarked mobile browser page. On-demand customization Users can run parameterized reports and drill down to further details. Users can trigger reports to be sent as attachments to view or work with while in disconnected mode. Interactive reports and dashboards can be used for analysis in offline mode. 31

34 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 INFORMATION BUILDERS WEBFOCUS 8 App Development Platform Flexibility to create any information workflow Ability to deliver multiple forms of information through the mobile app Actionable mobile apps 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, , 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 appropriate actions from within the mobile apps. IBI does not provide the capabilities to create and deploy purpose-built, workflow-driven mobile apps. They can only deliver traditional BI content on the mobile devices. Delivering multiple forms of information to users within the same app is not possible. WebFocus does not provide unstructured information, like images, text, desktop publishing design, web content (web pages, videos). Existing reports can be distributed to mobile devices without conversion which is why WebFocus mobile applications cannot handle as many specific features as MicroStrategy. This also causes limitations in creating flexibility workflow and delivering multiple forms of information throughout the mobile app. Creating mobile reports and making them available is possible using standard development and delivery tools, which results in limitations in providing specific features for mobile apps. Without a dedicated platform, it is impossible to create appealing 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 Chief Executive Officer, eharmony requirement. 32

35 Web Web Browser Browser Web Browser Apple Apple ipad ipad Trend Analysis ipad 1:55 PM 100% Segmentation Analysis Statistical Analysis Figure 9: Advanced Analytics can be Easily Incorporated into and Consumed through Reports, Dashboards and Scorecards. 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 Manager, IT Systems, Porsche Cars North management America, Inc. 33

36 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 INFORMATION BUILDERS WEBFOCUS 8 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 MicroStrategy s ability to generate multipass 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 frontend 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. WebFocus does not generate multi-pass SQL query blocks. Therefore, it cannot answer complex questions in an efficient way by leveraging the database and analytical engine in the middle tier in an iterative way when appropriate. IBI metadata does not have the extent of object embedding and reusability that MSTR has across the entire platform. This makes it more difficult for report designers and business analysts to create and maintain reports with sophisticated analytics without requiring significant IT coding. 34

37 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 INFORMATION BUILDERS WEBFOCUS 8 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 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-anddicing 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. WebFocus uses RSTAT, a graphical user interface to the open source R statistical language. Open source R statistical language used by RSTAT does not have technical support available by phone or 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. 35

38 MicroStrategy 9 Supports a Gradual and Incremental Migration from Islands of BI into a Consolidated Enterprise BI System Stage 1 Disparate Islands of BI All Running on MicroStrategy BI Stage 2 Merging Islands of BI Using MicroStrategy Multi-source Stage 3 Consolidating Data Re-pointing Metadata to the EDW Enterprise Enterprise HR Sales Enterprise HR Sales Enterprise DW Enterprise DW Enterprise DW Fin HR Sales Fin Fin Finance Dept HR Dept Sales Dept Finance Dept HR Dept Sales Dept Finance Dept HR Dept Sales Dept 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 Chief Executive Officer and Executive Vice President Research, place. Ventana Research KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 INFORMATION BUILDERS WEBFOCUS 8 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 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 WebFocus provides very limited central and reusable metadata as they have a very thin semantic layer. 36

39 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 INFORMATION BUILDERS WEBFOCUS 8 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 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 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. 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. Through the iway product data connectors, Information Builders provides native access to many data sources, including relational and multidimensional databases. WebFocus can function without a data warehouse.

40 KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 INFORMATION BUILDERS WEBFOCUS 8 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 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. Resource Analyzer stores usage statistics for all servers in a central database. However, Resource Analyzer is a separate product that requires additional skill sets, licenses and an additional server to install and configure. WebFocus Resource Analyzer provides reports for usage analysis. However, because the reports are developed in WebFocus, the range of analysis possible is limited by WebFocus limitations. The lack of reusable reporting objects in WebFocus makes it difficult to create additional usage reports. Administration of a WebFocus environment requires multiple tools. WebFocus Administration, Managed Reporting Environment (MRE) administration, and Resource Analyzer all use different interfaces. The administration of user access to reports generally requires either MRE, which involves additional licenses, or heavy customization. User security is also configured in many places, with data security configured in individual master files, while report access permissions and user privileges are configured in MRE. WebFocus does not provide a real time usage monitoring environment where the administrator can see who is logged in and what reports they are running, identify runaway queries in real-time, and manually log out users or kill jobs. The WebFocus administrator has little power to take action to maintain the stability of the system. 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 Wayne Eckerson, Director of TDWI Research at The Data Warehousing requirements. Institute 38

41 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.

42 COLL MicroStrategy Incorporated 1850 Towers Crescent Plaza Tysons Corner, VA