MicroStrategy Incorporated, a leading worldwide provider of business intelligence (BI) and mobile software, today unveiled MicroStrategy 9.3.1, the latest version of the Company’s core enterprise analytics platform.
MicroStrategy 9.3.1 breaks new ground by combining innovative, industry-leading visual data discovery with enterprise-grade, system-of-record BI. With significant user interface innovations and major feature enhancements, MicroStrategy 9.3.1 takes agile visual analytics to a new level, delivering:
* Superior Productivity for Business Users. A streamlined user experience, more powerful data exploration features, and new capabilities to securely share visual analytics and insight make MicroStrategy 9.3.1 more productive for every business user.
* Better Access to big data. Optimised data source connections make it easier to access and analyse the entire ecosystem of enterprise data, including Hadoop-based data.
* More Expansive Advanced and Predictive Analytics. MicroStrategy 9.3.1 enables business users to quickly and easily leverage advanced analytics to improve decision-making.
* Innovative Mobile Applications. Native mobile apps for an immersive analytical experience and improved app platform capabilities for code-free development of any mobile business app.
* More Flexible Deployment Options. MicroStrategy 9.3.1 can be installed and deployed on premises, and is also available as a subscription-based service with MicroStrategy Cloud.
“MicroStrategy 9.3.1 delivers on the promise of agile visual data discovery – fast, easy-to-use, self-service analytics for business, with all the security, performance, scale, and reliability of an enterprise-grade BI platform,” said Michael Saylor, Chairman and CEO, MicroStrategy Incorporated.
Visual data discovery has become popular because it enables business users to quickly analyse their data with intuitive, interactive visual tools and then build and publish their own analytical dashboards.
Unlike other business intelligence approaches, visual data discovery delivers a self-service experience that does not require IT support, resulting in strong gains in productivity, as analytics that previously involved IT and took weeks to deliver can now be created and published in a matter of hours.
Unfortunately, the proliferation of standalone visual data discovery tools creates serious security and governance concerns, especially as usage grows. Because data storage is often local for each client, there is no single version of the truth across multi-user environments, so they are unsuitable for critical, system-of-record applications where data security and trustworthiness is of paramount importance.
Beyond this, standalone visual data discovery tools do not scale gracefully and lack enterprise features like production reporting, sophisticated security and access controls, and native mobile app support. That is why most implementations of standalone agile tools remain limited to teams or departments and are employed for ad hoc analysis rather than operational applications.
MicroStrategy 9.3.1 delivers visual data discovery within a comprehensive enterprise BI platform, combining the self-service productivity with the security, scalability, and governance of a system-of-record business intelligence solution.
With MicroStrategy 9.3.1, there is no need to compromise between agility and governance. The release empowers business users with the best of both worlds – beautiful, interactive visual analytics, together with data that companies can trust.
MicroStrategy 9.3.1 includes important new user interface enhancements:
* Powerful Connect-Discover-Dashboard-Share (CDDS) Workflow for Business Users. MicroStrategy 9.3.1 introduces a new, streamlined workflow to support business user self-service analytics. Users simply click “New Dashboard” on the MicroStrategy home page to initiate the workflow.
* Connect. Users begin by choosing their data source. They can quickly tap into existing datasets in MicroStrategy, access personal data sources like Excel files, and connect to SaaS-based data like Salesforce.com, relational databases, multi-dimensional databases, or Hadoop-based data. MicroStrategy’s 9.3.1 streamlined data import process can augment and enrich time and geographic data.
* Discover. MicroStrategy 9.3.1 enables any user to explore and understand their data quickly and easily through a wide variety of stunning visualisations and drag-and-drop interactive filtering, powered by speed-of-thought in-memory database technology.
* Dashboard – building stunning, self-service dashboards has never been faster or easier. Users can quickly add multiple visualisations in a single dashboard from multiple data sources. Dashboard views can be quickly customised with drag-and-drop positioning for each visualisation. MicroStrategy 9.3.1 also supports guided dashboard navigation for users with targeted, selection-based filtering.
This synchronises filtering across multiple views on a single dashboard, so a user selection of a data element on one visualisation may act as a filter to update corresponding visualisations on the same dashboard.
* Share – MicroStrategy 9.3.1 enhances data sharing with new, one-click secure publishing that makes sharing dashboards and analytics effortless. Directly from the interface, users can generate and send links to their dashboards, or create code to embed their dashboard in any Web page, portal, or blog. Users can quickly specify who has access to their dashboard, as well as their customised permission level (full control, read-only, modify and so on). The secure nature of this fast, easy sharing functionality stands in sharp contrast to agile analytics point solutions. Dashboards can be shared on the web or via mobile devices.
* New Web Interface. MicroStrategy 9.3.1 features a redesigned Web interface with a clean, modern look-and-feel. Navigation is faster and easier with improved folder view functionality that enables users to track their location and customise views, and a new collapsible toolbar that makes it easy to take quick action without compromising usability.
* KPI Publishing for Business Users. MicroStrategy 9.3.1 includes a powerful new Web-based metric editor, which makes it easy for any user to define, save, and share metric or key performance indicator (KPI) definitions. Any changes made to a shared KPI permeate to all dashboards, reports, and analytics that use that KPI, enabling a single version of the truth for that metric definition.
“We are excited about the significant enhancements to the user interface and user experience in MicroStrategy 9.3.1,” says Alberto Laudadio, project manager and business intelligence Architect for LATAM Cargo. “MicroStrategy has smartly given its Visual Insight data discovery tool the position of prominence in the interface, making it readily accessible to business users and signaling its importance as a dominant analytical paradigm. We anticipate these improvements will significantly increase our user productivity.”
MicroStrategy 9.3.1 delivers seamless, optimised access to the entire ecosystem of enterprise data, ranging from personal data sources like Excel files, to multidimensional databases, relational databases and data warehouses, columnar databases, SaaS-based application data, and even the most massive Hadoop-based data sources.
MicroStrategy is consistently recognised as a leader in large-scale analytical applications. For five consecutive years, an independent report, The BI Survey, published by BARC, has found that MicroStrategy customers consistently analyse the highest median data volumes compared to customers of other vendors.
MicroStrategy 9.3.1 supports growing customer demand for large-scale data analytics that address increasing volume, variety, and velocity of data with a range of new, optimised data source connectors:
* Hadoop – enables a broad range of users, including business analysts and non-technical users, to access, analyse, and extract actionable insight from Hadoop Distributed File Systems (HDFS) without the need to develop HiveQL scripts or MapReduce jobs.
* Relational databases and warehouses – the new release adds certified integrations to a variety of new relational database technologies.
* SaaS-based data sources – MicroStrategy 9.3.1 delivers realtime integration to a variety of the most common cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) applications, such as Facebook, NetSuite, SugarCRM, Eloqua, and Zendesk. MicroStrategy leverages a certified integration with its Elastic Intelligence’s Connection Cloud service to support this connectivity.
With MicroStrategy 9.3.1, no additional third-party analytics products are necessary to deliver the vast majority of analytics required by business users. MicroStrategy 9.3.1 natively incorporates over 300 of the most commonly used business analytical functions, ranging from data summarisation and trending, to relationship analysis and projections.
These functions are designed to support the vast majority of business analytics use cases. For situations that require non-native, advanced predictive or prescriptive analytics, MicroStrategy 9.3.1 can expand its functional range to include the more than 5 000 analytical computations available within the “R” open source project, the world’s most widely used statistical computing language.
As a result, MicroStrategy can deliver the broadest range of analytical functions in the industry directly into any report, dashboard, or interactive visualisation.
The new release expands on previous MicroStrategy support for “R” with a new MicroStrategy “R” Integration Pack that streamlines the process of creating R-based metrics in the platform.
Now, customers that have created predictive and data mining models developed using Predictive Model Markup Language (PMML) in R can use the new Integration Pack to create new “R”-based metrics directly in MicroStrategy with just a single click. Like other MicroStrategy metrics, R-based metrics are fully governed and reusable.
* Superior Productivity for Business Users. A streamlined user experience, more powerful data exploration features, and new capabilities to securely share visual analytics and insight make MicroStrategy 9.3.1 more productive for every business user.
* Better Access to big data. Optimised data source connections make it easier to access and analyse the entire ecosystem of enterprise data, including Hadoop-based data.
* More Expansive Advanced and Predictive Analytics. MicroStrategy 9.3.1 enables business users to quickly and easily leverage advanced analytics to improve decision-making.
* Innovative Mobile Applications. Native mobile apps for an immersive analytical experience and improved app platform capabilities for code-free development of any mobile business app.
* More Flexible Deployment Options. MicroStrategy 9.3.1 can be installed and deployed on premises, and is also available as a subscription-based service with MicroStrategy Cloud.
“MicroStrategy 9.3.1 delivers on the promise of agile visual data discovery – fast, easy-to-use, self-service analytics for business, with all the security, performance, scale, and reliability of an enterprise-grade BI platform,” said Michael Saylor, Chairman and CEO, MicroStrategy Incorporated.
Visual data discovery has become popular because it enables business users to quickly analyse their data with intuitive, interactive visual tools and then build and publish their own analytical dashboards.
Unlike other business intelligence approaches, visual data discovery delivers a self-service experience that does not require IT support, resulting in strong gains in productivity, as analytics that previously involved IT and took weeks to deliver can now be created and published in a matter of hours.
Unfortunately, the proliferation of standalone visual data discovery tools creates serious security and governance concerns, especially as usage grows. Because data storage is often local for each client, there is no single version of the truth across multi-user environments, so they are unsuitable for critical, system-of-record applications where data security and trustworthiness is of paramount importance.
Beyond this, standalone visual data discovery tools do not scale gracefully and lack enterprise features like production reporting, sophisticated security and access controls, and native mobile app support. That is why most implementations of standalone agile tools remain limited to teams or departments and are employed for ad hoc analysis rather than operational applications.
MicroStrategy 9.3.1 delivers visual data discovery within a comprehensive enterprise BI platform, combining the self-service productivity with the security, scalability, and governance of a system-of-record business intelligence solution.
With MicroStrategy 9.3.1, there is no need to compromise between agility and governance. The release empowers business users with the best of both worlds – beautiful, interactive visual analytics, together with data that companies can trust.
MicroStrategy 9.3.1 includes important new user interface enhancements:
* Powerful Connect-Discover-Dashboard-Share (CDDS) Workflow for Business Users. MicroStrategy 9.3.1 introduces a new, streamlined workflow to support business user self-service analytics. Users simply click “New Dashboard” on the MicroStrategy home page to initiate the workflow.
* Connect. Users begin by choosing their data source. They can quickly tap into existing datasets in MicroStrategy, access personal data sources like Excel files, and connect to SaaS-based data like Salesforce.com, relational databases, multi-dimensional databases, or Hadoop-based data. MicroStrategy’s 9.3.1 streamlined data import process can augment and enrich time and geographic data.
* Discover. MicroStrategy 9.3.1 enables any user to explore and understand their data quickly and easily through a wide variety of stunning visualisations and drag-and-drop interactive filtering, powered by speed-of-thought in-memory database technology.
* Dashboard – building stunning, self-service dashboards has never been faster or easier. Users can quickly add multiple visualisations in a single dashboard from multiple data sources. Dashboard views can be quickly customised with drag-and-drop positioning for each visualisation. MicroStrategy 9.3.1 also supports guided dashboard navigation for users with targeted, selection-based filtering.
This synchronises filtering across multiple views on a single dashboard, so a user selection of a data element on one visualisation may act as a filter to update corresponding visualisations on the same dashboard.
* Share – MicroStrategy 9.3.1 enhances data sharing with new, one-click secure publishing that makes sharing dashboards and analytics effortless. Directly from the interface, users can generate and send links to their dashboards, or create code to embed their dashboard in any Web page, portal, or blog. Users can quickly specify who has access to their dashboard, as well as their customised permission level (full control, read-only, modify and so on). The secure nature of this fast, easy sharing functionality stands in sharp contrast to agile analytics point solutions. Dashboards can be shared on the web or via mobile devices.
* New Web Interface. MicroStrategy 9.3.1 features a redesigned Web interface with a clean, modern look-and-feel. Navigation is faster and easier with improved folder view functionality that enables users to track their location and customise views, and a new collapsible toolbar that makes it easy to take quick action without compromising usability.
* KPI Publishing for Business Users. MicroStrategy 9.3.1 includes a powerful new Web-based metric editor, which makes it easy for any user to define, save, and share metric or key performance indicator (KPI) definitions. Any changes made to a shared KPI permeate to all dashboards, reports, and analytics that use that KPI, enabling a single version of the truth for that metric definition.
“We are excited about the significant enhancements to the user interface and user experience in MicroStrategy 9.3.1,” says Alberto Laudadio, project manager and business intelligence Architect for LATAM Cargo. “MicroStrategy has smartly given its Visual Insight data discovery tool the position of prominence in the interface, making it readily accessible to business users and signaling its importance as a dominant analytical paradigm. We anticipate these improvements will significantly increase our user productivity.”
MicroStrategy 9.3.1 delivers seamless, optimised access to the entire ecosystem of enterprise data, ranging from personal data sources like Excel files, to multidimensional databases, relational databases and data warehouses, columnar databases, SaaS-based application data, and even the most massive Hadoop-based data sources.
MicroStrategy is consistently recognised as a leader in large-scale analytical applications. For five consecutive years, an independent report, The BI Survey, published by BARC, has found that MicroStrategy customers consistently analyse the highest median data volumes compared to customers of other vendors.
MicroStrategy 9.3.1 supports growing customer demand for large-scale data analytics that address increasing volume, variety, and velocity of data with a range of new, optimised data source connectors:
* Hadoop – enables a broad range of users, including business analysts and non-technical users, to access, analyse, and extract actionable insight from Hadoop Distributed File Systems (HDFS) without the need to develop HiveQL scripts or MapReduce jobs.
* Relational databases and warehouses – the new release adds certified integrations to a variety of new relational database technologies.
* SaaS-based data sources – MicroStrategy 9.3.1 delivers realtime integration to a variety of the most common cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) applications, such as Facebook, NetSuite, SugarCRM, Eloqua, and Zendesk. MicroStrategy leverages a certified integration with its Elastic Intelligence’s Connection Cloud service to support this connectivity.
With MicroStrategy 9.3.1, no additional third-party analytics products are necessary to deliver the vast majority of analytics required by business users. MicroStrategy 9.3.1 natively incorporates over 300 of the most commonly used business analytical functions, ranging from data summarisation and trending, to relationship analysis and projections.
These functions are designed to support the vast majority of business analytics use cases. For situations that require non-native, advanced predictive or prescriptive analytics, MicroStrategy 9.3.1 can expand its functional range to include the more than 5 000 analytical computations available within the “R” open source project, the world’s most widely used statistical computing language.
As a result, MicroStrategy can deliver the broadest range of analytical functions in the industry directly into any report, dashboard, or interactive visualisation.
The new release expands on previous MicroStrategy support for “R” with a new MicroStrategy “R” Integration Pack that streamlines the process of creating R-based metrics in the platform.
Now, customers that have created predictive and data mining models developed using Predictive Model Markup Language (PMML) in R can use the new Integration Pack to create new “R”-based metrics directly in MicroStrategy with just a single click. Like other MicroStrategy metrics, R-based metrics are fully governed and reusable.
