And Analytics For All

The software vendor this week plans to unveil a rewritten front end for its business-intelligence platform. Called MicroStrategy 7i, the new version "looks like Windows on the Web, with pull-down menus and right-mouse click [functionality, but what's remarkable is it has zero footprint," said Sanju Bansal, vice chairman and COO of MicroStrategy.

Written in DHTML, MicroStrategy 7i doesn't require Java or ActiveX at the desktop, making it appropriate for use in extranets, where fat downloads can be impeded by firewalls, Bansal said.

The analytics software space has been a bright spot in the dim IT spending climate, industry observers say. Businesses are seeking robust, user-friendly tools to make better use of the data and systems already in place, they said.

"If you talk to a CFO, vice president of sales or person who runs reports, they couldn't care less if the back end is Oracle or [Microsoft SQL Server. They want to know how easy the tool is to use," said John Parker, director of business intelligence at Anexinet, a Philadelphia-based integrator.

Kevin Scott, senior analyst at AMR Research, said MicroStrategy 7i is more interactive and intuitive than the previous version. "That's what the market is looking for," he said. "People want decision support or business-intelligence systems that you don't have to be a 'propellerhead' to use."

MicroStrategy 7i will foster the use of "intelligent cubes" by nontechnical users, Bansal said.

"Instead of having an administrator create [OLAP cubes, any user can do that at any time. Creating a cube is as easy as creating a report," he said, adding that the benefits include faster performance and the ability to pull relevant data from the database and place it into a "hyperindexed" cube for slicing and dicing.

A new mapping tool and methodology will help integrators marry new analytics to a customer's existing data model, Bansal said.

MicroStrategy now derives 20 percent of its revenue via the channel, but the company hopes to raise its channel business to 40 percent of sales in the next two to three years, Bansal said.

Pricing for MicroStrategy 7i starts at $590 per user or $60,000 per CPU, the company said.