MicroStrategy

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MicroStrategy
Type Public
Traded as NASDAQ: MSTR
Industry Business intelligence and mobile software
Founded 1989
Headquarters Tysons Corner, Virginia, USA
Key people

Michael J. Saylor (Co-founder, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer)
Sanju K. Bansal (Co-founder, Vice Chairman of the Board and Executive Vice President)
Jonathan Klein (President and Chief Legal Officer)
Paul Zolfaghari (President)
Douglas Thede (Senior Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer)
Bob Watts (Chief Operating Officer and Senior Executive Vice President)

Peng Xiao (Chief Technology Officer and Senior Executive Vice President)
Products MicroStrategy Business Intelligence Platform, MicroStrategy Mobile, MicroStrategy Cloud, Express, Wisdom, Alert, Usher
Revenue $594.61 million USD (2012)[1]
Employees 3,200+ worldwide[2]
Subsidiaries Angel (http://www.angel.com)
Website www.microstrategy.com

MicroStrategy, Inc. is a provider of business intelligence (BI), mobile software, and cloud-based services. The company is based in the Washington, D.C. area, with offices in other countries as well. Founded in 1989 by Michael J. Saylor and Sanju K. Bansal, MicroStrategy develops software that helps organizations analyze internal and external data in order to make business decisions and to develop mobile apps. Its software can be deployed in companies' data centers or as cloud services.

Contents

Overview [edit]

MicroStrategy develops and sells business intelligence, mobile software, and cloud-based services for companies and organizations. Its business intelligence software platform aggregates data from multiple sources, such as sales figures,[3] payroll data,[4] and real-time operational data[5] in order to inform users' business decisions.[6] Its mobile software products include apps for reviewing business intelligence data[7] and providing a mobile identity system for companies,[8] as well as a mobile marketing and commerce platform.[9] The company also provides a Facebook-focused market research platform.[10]

MicroStrategy is based in the Washington, D.C. metro area with operations in 26 countries.[2][11] Clients include Facebook,[12] Starbucks,[13] and Lowe's Companies.[14]

The current CEO and chairman of the board of MicroStrategy is Michael J. Saylor, the company's co-founder. Sanju K. Bansal, the other co-founder, is executive vice president and vice chairman of the board.[15][16]

Software products that compete with MicroStrategy’s offerings in the business intelligence (BI) market include SAP Business Objects, Oracle's BI Platform, IBM Cognos, Tableau Software, and QlikTech.[17][18] Other BI vendors include privately held SAS Institute and smaller competitors.[19]

History [edit]

Michael J. Saylor started MicroStrategy in 1989 with a consulting contract from DuPont, which provided Saylor with $250,000 in start-up capital and office space in Wilmington, Delaware. Saylor was soon joined by company co-founder Sanju K. Bansal, whom he had met while the two were students at MIT.[20] The company produced software for data mining[15] using nonlinear mathematics, an idea inspired by a course that Saylor and Bansal took at MIT.[21] In 1994, Saylor and Bansal moved the company's offices and its 50 employees from Delaware to Tysons Corner, Virginia.[22] During this time period, MicroStrategy experienced rapid growth. In 1992, the company gained its first major client when it signed a $10 million contract with McDonald's, and increased revenues by 100% every year between 1990 and 1996.[20] MicroStrategy had its initial public offering in June 1998.[23] On its first day of trading, the stock price doubled.[24]

In March 2000, after a review of its accounting practices, MicroStrategy announced that it would restate its financial results for the preceding two years,[25] which resulted in an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.[26] In December 2000, Saylor, Bansal, and the company's former CFO settled with the SEC without admitting wrongdoing by each paying $350,000 in fines. The officers also paid a combined total of $10 million in disgorgement. MicroStrategy itself was charged with a number of violations and settled with the SEC by hiring an independent director to ensure regulatory compliance.[27][28] The company's stock dropped 61% on March 20, 2000 to close at $86 per share, and lost over 90% of its value within a few weeks.[29] A 10:1 reverse stock split in July 2002 reduced the number of outstanding common shares.[30]

Subsequently, the company added over 200 new corporate customers by the fourth quarter of 2003[31] and grew sales, posting increased revenue for every quarter through the end of 2007.[32] New clients during this period included the United States Postal Service, DHL Express, and Priceline.com.[33][32]

In 2010, MicroStrategy began developing and deploying business intelligence software for mobile platforms, such as the iPhone and iPad.[34] The company had developed its first internal iPad application by July 2010, and in 2011 provided its workforce with 2,300 iPads.[35]

In 2012, MicroStrategy released Wisdom, a market research tool which, among other features, allows for a demographic analysis of social media platforms such as Facebook.[36]

Products [edit]

MicroStrategy has seven product lines: MicroStrategy Business Intelligence; MicroStrategy Mobile; MicroStrategy Cloud; Express; Wisdom; Alert; and Usher.

MicroStrategy Business Intelligence helps users search through and analyze large amounts of data from a variety of sources, including databases, data warehouses, and Hadoop distributions. The BI platform includes a web-based tool to automatically generate visualizations of data.[17] The software platform also includes MicroStrategy's online analytical processing (OLAP) services, which provide faster queries via in-memory cubes of cached data.[6]

MicroStrategy Mobile helps customers build and deploy mobile apps for the iPhone, iPad, Android, and BlackBerry that deliver business intelligence data without needing to reformat the data for different platforms.[7][9]

MicroStrategy Cloud is a cloud-based platform as a service that helps users deploy business intelligence, mobile, and social apps that integrate with MicroStrategy's business intelligence and mobile platforms.[37][38]

MicroStrategy also provides a software as a service business intelligence application called Express that helps users build, schedule, and deliver analytic reports to recipients in their organization.[38]

Wisdom is a market research and intelligence application that uses data from social networks and public data sources. There are two products named Wisdom: Wisdom for Facebook, a free, public tool that identifies demographic and behavioral trends among users of the social media network;[10][39] and Wisdom Professional, which helps business users analyze large amounts of data from publicly available sources and social networks to aid in social media marketing and brand management.[40]

The company also provides Alert, a mobile commerce application that helps retailers and other merchants create branded mobile apps for marketing, commerce, and loyalty. These apps can integrate with customer relationship management and marketing databases.

Usher is MicroStrategy's mobile identity application, which provides an electronic alternative to employee IDs, keys, and proximity cards. The app can allow access to physical locations and digital assets, and it can allow users to digitally store and sign documents.[8][41]

References [edit]

  1. ^ "MicroStrategy Announces Fourth Quarter 2012 Financial Results". MicroStrategy. 28 January 2013. Retrieved 5 February 2013. 
  2. ^ a b "About Us". MicroStrategy.com. Retrieved 14 February, 2013. 
  3. ^ Doug Henschen (10 July 2012). "MicroStrategy Amps Up Data Visualization, Big Data Analytics". InformationWeek. Retrieved 25 January, 2013. 
  4. ^ Heather Havenstein (23 July, 2008). "TSA leans on BI to save $100 million". Computerworld. Retrieved 26 January, 2013. 
  5. ^ Rick Whiting (31 January, 2005). "Business Objects And MicroStrategy Debut Business-Intelligence Upgrades". InformationWeek. Retrieved 25 January, 2013. 
  6. ^ a b Doug Henschen (14 January, 2009). "MicroStrategy Upgrade Promises Performance and Flexibility Breakthroughs". InformationWeek. Retrieved 25 January, 2013. 
  7. ^ a b Elena Malykhina (9 October, 2007). "MicroStrategy Offers Business Intelligence Software For BlackBerrys". InformationWeek. Retrieved 25 January, 2013. 
  8. ^ a b "MicroStrategy to Host 16th Annual "World" Conference, January 28-31, 2013, in Las Vegas" (Press release). PR Newswire. 17 January 2013. 
  9. ^ a b "Specialty retailer Tilly’s launches new mobile commerce application for consumers". Progressive Media. 14 January 14, 2013. Retrieved 8 February, 2013. 
  10. ^ a b Barb Darrow (25 January, 2012). "MicroStrategy bets big on Facebook data". GigaOM. Retrieved 8 March, 2013. 
  11. ^ "Contact Us". MicroStrategy.com. Retrieved 8 February, 2013. 
  12. ^ David Carr (26 January, 2012). "Even At Facebook, Business Intelligence Is Not Viral". InformationWeek. Retrieved 25 January, 2013. 
  13. ^ Doug Henschen (6 July, 2011). "Starbucks BI Test: Can Managers Beat Heatwave?". InformationWeek. Retrieved 8 February, 2013. 
  14. ^ "MicroStrategy Delivers High Performance for Virtualized Environment Operations". Business Intelligence Journal. 15 March, 2011. Retrieved 8 March, 2013. 
  15. ^ a b Harry Jaffe (1 March, 2000). "The Seven Billion Dollar Man". The Washingtonian. Retrieved 25 January, 2013. 
  16. ^ "Leadership". MicroStrategy.com. Retrieved 1 February, 2013. 
  17. ^ a b Chris Kanaracus (19 April, 2011). "Microstrategy Takes Aim at Self-service BI". Retrieved 8 February, 2013. 
  18. ^ Cindi Howson (14 February, 2013). "MicroStrategy Doubles Down On Mobile, Data Visualization". InformationWeek. Retrieved 8 March, 2013. 
  19. ^ Rob van der Meulen (10 January, 2008). "Gartner Says Strong Growth in Business Intelligence Will Decline as Market Flux Continues". Gartner. Retrieved 29 January, 2013. 
  20. ^ a b Jeff Glasser (15 July, 1996). "From the Ground Up and Up". The Washington Post. Retrieved 26 January, 2013. 
  21. ^ Chuck Salter (31 March, 2000). "People and Technology - MicroStrategy Inc.". Fast Company. Retrieved 25 January, 2013. 
  22. ^ Mark Leibovich (6 January, 2002). "MicroStrategy's CEO Sped to the Brink". The Washington Post. Retrieved 27 January, 2013. 
  23. ^ "Initial Public Offerings Key Data". NASDAQ. 11 June, 1998. Retrieved 27 January, 2013. 
  24. ^ David A. Kaplan (12 July, 2012). "Michael Saylor: MicroStrategy's boy king grows up". Fortune. Retrieved 8 February, 2013. 
  25. ^ David S. Hilzenrath (22 March, 2000). "For MicroStrategy, A Matter of Timing". The Washington Post. Retrieved 29 January, 2013. 
  26. ^ David S. Hilzenrath (14 April, 2000). "SEC Investigating MicroStrategy". The Washington Post. Retrieved 29 January, 2013. 
  27. ^ Debra Lau (18 December, 2000). "Forbes Faces: Michael Saylor". Forbes.com. Retrieved 25 January, 2013. 
  28. ^ David S. Hilzenrath (15 December, 2000). "Saylor, Associates Settle Fraud Charges". The Washington Post. Retrieved 29 January, 2013. 
  29. ^ Forbes Faces: Michael Saylor, Forbes.com, by Debra Lau, 12.18.00
  30. ^ Clabaugh, Jeff (July 30, 2002). "Reverse stock split for Microstrategy". Washington Business Journal. 
  31. ^ Catherine Yang (8 February, 2004). "MicroStrategy's Second Wind". Businessweek.com. Bloomberg. Retrieved 25 January, 2013. 
  32. ^ a b Kim Hart (1 February, 2007). "Software Company's Strategy Pays Off". The Washington Post. Retrieved 25 January, 2013. 
  33. ^ Anitha Reddy (8 July, 2003). "MicroStrategy Wins Contract With Postal Service". The Washington Post. Retrieved 5 February, 2013. 
  34. ^ Alex Kayle (7 July, 2010). "iPad spells end for traditional BI". ITWeb. Retrieved 25 January, 2013. 
  35. ^ John Cox (5 August, 2011). "iPads power productivity gains at MicroStrategy". NetworkWorld. Retrieved 8 February, 2013. 
  36. ^ Cindi Howson (23 July, 2012). "MicroStrategy Bets On Visualization, BI for Facebook". InformationWeek. Retrieved 25 January, 2013. 
  37. ^ Chris Kanaracus (28 September, 2011). "Microstrategy Targets Excel Users With Cloud Personal BI". PCWorld. Retrieved 25 January, 2013. 
  38. ^ a b Kristen Doyle (13 July, 2012). "MicroStrategy unveils Cloud Express". ITWeb. Retrieved 26 January, 2013. 
  39. ^ David F. Carr (25 January, 2012). "Facebook: The Database of Wealth And Power". InformationWeek. Retrieved 26 January, 2013. 
  40. ^ "Wisdom Product Sheet". Wisdom.com. Retrieved 8 February, 2013. 
  41. ^ "Usher Product Sheet". Usher.com. Retrieved 8 February, 2013. 

External links [edit]

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