MicroStrategy Announces General Availability of MicroStrategy Cloud Express, Innovative New SaaS Offering

TYSONS CORNER, Va., Oct. 31, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- MicroStrategy^® Incorporated (Nasdaq: MSTR), a leading worldwide provider of business intelligence (BI) software, today announced the general availability of MicroStrategy Cloud Express, an innovative Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution designed for "do-it-yourself" business analytics, mobile intelligence and data publishing. MicroStrategy Cloud Express enables any business person – regardless of technical skill – to access and analyze data on their own, and deploy powerful data-driven mobile apps to thousands of users within days. The new service is free for everyone to try at www.microstrategy.com/cloud.

MicroStrategy Cloud Express combines the simplicity and flexibility of a cloud-based solution with the analytical depth, performance and scalability of world-class business intelligence. Business people can access on-premises and cloud-based data instantly and securely, and explore it using powerful and intuitive data visualizations. They can design and share mobile apps without writing a line of code. They can build boardroom-quality dashboards using pixel-perfect editing capabilities, and automatically publish personalized documents to any number of recipients.

The release of MicroStrategy Cloud Express adds a new service level to the MicroStrategy Cloud, which originally became available in 2011 with Personal and Platform service options. Please visit the MicroStrategy Cloud web site for a detailed comparison of all MicroStrategy Cloud services. MicroStrategy Cloud Express is available as a subscription-based service. Subscribers only pay for the services they consume each month, so it's easy for organizations to start small and grow their implementation over time. Subscribers also benefit from an easy migration path to full Platform services, if needed.

Deploy Smart Mobile App "Smashups" In Days
"Smashups", or smart mobile app mashups, combine reports, dashboards and multimedia content in a dazzling iPad-based mobile interface. MicroStrategy Cloud Express makes it easy for anyone to build and deploy their own unique smashups in days, without writing a single line of code. With smashups, any team, department, or organization can quickly build and deploy branded, professional-quality analytics and content to any number of mobile users quickly and easily, regardless of budget or IT skill.

Smashups empower mobile employees and customers and support hundreds of use cases. Organizations can use smashups to:

• Deliver a weekly business briefing book to the C-suite or to each functional department or line of business that's as easy to read as the New York Times iPad app, but contains personalized, relevant business information for every executive or employee.
• Create a branded iPad app for their sales organization that features all the important sales content stored on the company portal – presentations, videos, training, pipeline analytics, etc. – but is 10 times easier to access and available instantly on the iPad.
• Publish daily performance reports to hundreds of retail locations in combination with other information like store management best practices, promotional guidelines, and more.

For many organizations, long development times and high deployment costs have traditionally stood as barriers to these types of enterprise mobile app deployments. With MicroStrategy Cloud Express, they become quick and cost-effective.

"The ease of use and speed of development we experienced with MicroStrategy Cloud Express exceeded our expectations. Within minutes we were able to design a mobile intelligence app and deploy interactive dashboards to our end users," said Vinod George, Chief Information Officer at Radius Travel. "MicroStrategy delivers sophisticated visualizations and powerful analytics that turn data discovery into an actual business intelligence solution. They've established a new benchmark for simplicity and speed in delivering real business value to an organization."

Fast, Effortless Analytics
MicroStrategy Cloud Express establishes a new benchmark in agile BI. It addresses the deficiencies of desktop- and cloud-based competitors, combining the ease-of-use and zero-footprint benefits of software-as-a-service solutions with the established power of MicroStrategy business intelligence.

With MicroStrategy Cloud Express, business users can begin analyzing data instantly. Unlike other SaaS-based approaches, MicroStrategy Cloud Express doesn't require subscribers to move or replicate their entire database to the Cloud for analysis. With MicroStrategy's Direct Connect technology, Express users can simply connect and analyze compatible databases wherever they are located, without compromising performance. And there's no need to architect a data model or write SQL scripts. Using intuitive data discovery features, users can explore their data through simple drag-and-drop controls while leveraging powerful features like the ability to create metrics on-the-fly, use advanced and predictive analytics, filter and drill through data. Then users can securely publish and share their results with their team or more broadly.

"MicroStrategy Cloud Express greatly accelerates our ability to deliver value and results to our end users. Using the product for the first time, we were able to build seven interactive dashboards in less than two days," said Srinivasa Satrasala, Director Business Intelligence and Analytics at Open Analytics. "Cloud Express is surprisingly user-friendly with almost no learning curve. We liked the simplicity of the product and were particularly impressed by how simply and quickly we can build mobile BI apps. With MicroStrategy Cloud, our customers can see instant results, access a broader BI feature set, and pay as they go with no upfront commitment. Other BI companies take longer, cost more and do less."

Distribute Data to the Masses
MicroStrategy Cloud Express is an innovative new approach that finally makes powerful personalized data publishing faster and more cost-effective, while dramatically reducing technical complexity. With innovative Express Delivery functionality, Express subscribers can quickly build pixel-perfect documents and reports designed for mass distribution. MicroStrategy has streamlined the process of adding personalization to data contained in these reports.  Any user with minimal training can create distributions targeted to individual recipients based on factors like their organizational role, geographic location, or other criteria, without the need for long, complicated IT projects. These Express distributions are easy to set up and can quickly be configured for recurrence on a scheduled basis.

"MicroStrategy Cloud Express is unlike any product we've introduced before. It is an innovative technology that delivers powerful analytics and mobile intelligence features with remarkable ease," said Sanju Bansal, MicroStrategy Executive Vice President. "MicroStrategy Cloud Express will empower business executives and unburden IT departments, allowing companies to deliver value to their customers faster and more cost-effectively."

About MicroStrategy Incorporated

Founded in 1989, MicroStrategy is a leading provider of enterprise software platforms for Mobile Apps, business intelligence (BI), and social intelligence applications.  MicroStrategy's mobile app platform helps companies and organizations build and deploy revolutionary mobile apps across a range of solutions. Companies choose MicroStrategy to take what's unique and compelling about Mobile business apps that span workflows, multimedia, transactions, and business intelligence, and bring them to life in an easy, fast, and flexible platform that delivers software on the best devices in the world.  MicroStrategy's BI platform enables leading organizations worldwide to analyze the vast amounts of data stored across their enterprises to make better business decisions.  Companies choose MicroStrategy BI for its ease-of-use, sophisticated analytics, and superior data and user scalability. MicroStrategy's social intelligence platform includes a number of applications that help enterprises harness the power of social networks for marketing and e-commerce. The MicroStrategy Cloud offering combines MicroStrategy and third-party software, hardware, and services to enable rapid, cost-effective development of hosted mobile ,BI, and social applications.  To learn more about MicroStrategy (Nasdaq: MSTR), visit www.microstrategy.com and follow us on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/microstrategy) and Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/microstrategy).

MicroStrategy, MicroStrategy Cloud Express, MicroStrategy Business Intelligence Platform, and MicroStrategy Mobile are either trademarks or registered trademarks of MicroStrategy Incorporated in the United States and certain other countries. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

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Contact:
Warren Getler
MicroStrategy Incorporated
703-744-6258 
[email protected]

SOURCE MicroStrategy Incorporated