MicroStrategy 9 vs SAP BusinessObjects 4.1

CONFIDENTIAL The Information Contained In This Presentation Is Confidential And Proprietary To MicroStrategy. The Recipient Of This Document Agrees That They Will Not Disclose Its Contents To Any

Third Party Or Otherwise Use This Presentation For Any Purpose Other Than An Evaluation Of MicroStrategy's Business Or Its Offerings. Reproduction or Distribution Is Prohibited.

MICROSTRATEGY 9.4.1 VS. SAP BUSINESSOBJECTS 4.1

A comparison of key BI capabilities (July 2014)

This Document reflects the views, opinions and conclusions of MicroStrategy Incorporated (“MicroStrategy”) and other contributors to this Document. This Document 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 Document (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 Document. The entire risk with respect to the use of, or reliance on, this Document is with you. Should this Document 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 Document. In no event will MicroStrategy or Contributors be liable to you on account of any claim for damage, including any lost profits, lost savings, or other special, incidental, consequential, exemplary or other direct or indirect damages, including but not limited to any damages assessed against or paid by you to any third party, arising from the use of, or reliance on, this Document, even if MicroStrategy and Contributors have been advised of the possibility of such damages. In addition, neither MicroStrategy nor Contributors shall be liable for any claim by you or any other party for damages arising from the use of, or reliance on, this Document, based upon principles of contract warranty, negligence, strict liability, the failure of any remedy to achieve its essential purpose, or otherwise. This Document is copyrighted and all rights are reserved by MicroStrategy. MicroStrategy reserves the right to make periodic modifications to this Document without obligation to notify any person or entity of such revision. Copying, duplicating, selling, or otherwise distributing any part of this Document without prior written consent of an authorized representative of MicroStrategy is prohibited. Copyright Information All Contents Copyright © 2013 MicroStrategy Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Trademark Information MicroStrategy, MicroStrategy 6, MicroStrategy 7, MicroStrategy 7i, MicroStrategy 7i Evaluation Edition, MicroStrategy 7i Olap Services, MicroStrategy 8, MicroStrategy 9, MicroStrategy Distribution Services, MicroStrategy MultiSource Option, MicroStrategy Command Manager, MicroStrategy Enterprise Manager, MicroStrategy Object Manager, MicroStrategy Reporting Suite, MicroStrategy Power User, MicroStrategy Analyst, MicroStrategy Consumer, MicroStrategy Email Delivery, MicroStrategy BI Author, MicroStrategy BI Modeler, MicroStrategy Evaluation Edition, MicroStrategy Administrator, MicroStrategy Agent, MicroStrategy Architect, MicroStrategy BI Developer Kit, MicroStrategy Broadcast Server, MicroStrategy Broadcaster, MicroStrategy Broadcaster Server, MicroStrategy Business Intelligence Platform, MicroStrategy Consulting, MicroStrategy CRM Applications, MicroStrategy Customer Analyzer, MicroStrategy Desktop, MicroStrategy Desktop Analyst, MicroStrategy Desktop Designer, MicroStrategy eCRM 7, MicroStrategy Education, MicroStrategy eTrainer, MicroStrategy Executive, MicroStrategy Infocenter, MicroStrategy Intelligence Server, MicroStrategy Intelligence Server Universal Edition, MicroStrategy MDX Adapter, MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server, MicroStrategy Objects, MicroStrategy OLAP Provider, MicroStrategy SDK, MicroStrategy Support, MicroStrategy Telecaster, MicroStrategy Transactor, MicroStrategy Web, MicroStrategy Web Business Analyzer, MicroStrategy World, Application Development and Sophisticated Analysis, Best In Business Intelligence, Centralized Application Management, Information Like Water, Intelligence Through Every Phone, Intelligence To Every Decision Maker, Intelligent E-Business, Personalized Intelligence Portal, Query Tone, Rapid Application Development, MicroStrategy Intelligent Cubes, The Foundation For Intelligent E-Business, The Integrated Business Intelligence Platform Built For The Enterprise, The Platform For Intelligent E-Business, The Scalable Business Intelligence Platform Built For The Internet, Office Intelligence, MicroStrategy Office, MicroStrategy Report Services, MicroStrategy Web MMT, MicroStrategy Web Services, Pixel Perfect, Pixel-Perfect, MicroStrategy Mobile, MicroStrategy Integrity Manager and MicroStrategy Data Mining Services are all registered trademarks or trademarks of MicroStrategy Incorporated. 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, 7,881,443, 7,925,616, 7,945,584, 7,970,782, 8,005,870, 8,051,168, 8,051,369, 8,094,788, 8,130,918, 8,296,287, 8,321,411 and 8,452,755. Other patent applications are pending.

How to Contact Us

MicroStrategy Incorporated 1850 Towers Crescent Plaza

Tysons Corner, VA 22182 Phone: 703.848.8600 Fax: 703.848.8610

E-mail: [email protected] http://www.microstrategy.com

mailto:[email protected]



MICROSTRATEGY VS. SAP BUSINESSOBJECTS – EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

KEY CONSIDERATIONS MICROSTRATEGY SAP

BUSINESS

OBJECTS

1. ARCHITECTURAL EFFICIENCY

a. METADATA ARCHITECTURE – Single, reusable and object-oriented metadata vs. multiple metadata silos STRONG AVERAGE

b. MULTI-SOURCE - MicroStrategy’s ability to combine different data sources vs. BusinessObjects’ restrictive multisource STRONG AVERAGE

c. SECURITY ARCHITECTURE – Centralized and easy to manage security vs. decentralized security STRONG AVERAGE

2. SELF-SERVICE (DATA DISCOVERY)

a. AGILE ANALYTICS – Business friendly self-service analytics and rapid dashboard development STRONG AVERAGE

b. SELF-SERVICE ARCHITECTURE – MicroStrategy’s fully integrated data discovery vs. BusinessObjects’ limited integration STRONG AVERAGE

3. ENTERPRISE-GRADE DASHBOARDS – Powerful design capabilities vs. limited dashboard experience STRONG AVERAGE

4. NATIVE MOBILE BI APPS – Native Mobile apps that users love vs. BusinessObjects’ limited mobile capabilities STRONG AVERAGE

5. PROACTIVE BUSINESS MONITORING AND ALERTING – Proactive monitoring vs. limited proactive monitoring STRONG AVERAGE

6. TRANSACTIONS AND WRITE-BACK – Actionable vs. non-actionable dashboards and mobile apps STRONG NO SUPPORT

7. OPERATIONAL REPORTING & DOCUMENTS – Ability to modify documents in Web vs. limited capabilities to modify in Web STRONG AVERAGE

8. ADVANCED INTERACTIVITY – Interact with different levels of data through prompting, drilling, and searching STRONG AVERAGE

9. PERFORMANCE AND SCALABILITY - Superior performance at scale vs. performance limitations at scale STRONG AVERAGE

10. ADMINISTRATION EFFICIENCY – Higher efficiency using administration tools vs. limited administration tools STRONG AVERAGE

11. DEPLOYMENT FLEXIBILITY - BI on-premises or in the cloud STRONG AVERAGE

12. INDUSTRY ANALYSTS – Get unbiased perspective from one of the top industry analysts – BiScorecard STRONG AVERAGE

3

APPENDIX

4



ARCHITECTURAL EFFICIENCY – METADATA ARCHITECTURE

MicroStrategy’s single unified architecture vs. BusinessObjects’ multiple interfaces architecture 1.a.

Other BI Tools MICROSTRATEGY

MicroStrategy SAP BusinessObjects

1 Single Unified Architecture: MicroStrategy’s BI platform is organically developed from the ground up without any acquisitions. A single metadata, server, and code base enables centralized security and administration as well as tighter product integration.

Multiple User Interfaces: BusinessObjects is a collection of tools having two separate tools for dashboarding, reporting, data discovery, and architecture. Most of these tools are not properly integrated with each other. BusinessObjects’ portal is necessary to combine different user interfaces together since BusinessObjects reports and reporting objects do not fully integrate across their distinct tools, or from their desktop to Web interfaces.

2 Highly Object-Oriented Development and Object Reusability: Reusability of metadata components ensure that the same analytic object is used over and over at many different places across many reports and dashboards, and also as building block to create other analytic objects. Any change made to the reusable metadata components automatically propagate to all dependent objects ensuring easy and automated change management. MicroStrategy’s object-oriented metadata contains the most reusable objects including but not limited to attributes, metrics, filters, prompts, consolidations, custom groups, reports and templates.

Local Reporting Objects Not Shareable Among Users: Many calculations, conditions and prompts are typically created anew for each new report and cannot be easily used as building blocks to build other reporting objects. Report developers cannot create report objects as stand alone and reuse them across different reports creating redundant work and too many objects that serve the same purpose to maintain.

MicroStrategy offers a much superior metadata architecture as compared to SAP BusinessObjects

5



ARCHITECTURAL EFFICIENCY – MULTISOURCE

MicroStrategy’s ability to combine different data sources vs. BusinessObjects’ restrictive multi-source


1 Enterprise-Wide View of Information due to Multi-Sourcing: MicroStrategy provides the ability to combine data from different data sources into an enterprise-wide single version of the truth.

No OLAP-ROLAP Multi-Sourcing: Unlike MicroStrategy, BusinessObjects cannot create reports that get and combine data from both of a relational and multidimensional data source.

2 Seamless Navigation Across Multiple Data Sources: MicroStrategy’s unified multi-dimensional business model allows companies to create a single logical view spanning multiple data sources, making it easy to add any new data sources. Users are able to seamlessly drill across multiple data sources.

Insufficient Multi-Source Data Access: BusinessObjects 4.0 introduced multi-source universes. But this functionality can only be used with relational data sources. Furthermore, performance is far from ideal because it does not leverage the database and joins the results from different data sources in-memory.

6

1.b.

Create a unified enterprise-wide view from all your data assets



Enterprise-Class Security at Every Level of the BI Architecture

ARCHITECTURE EFFICIENCY – SECURITY ARCHITECTURE

Centralized and easy to manage security infrastructure vs. decentralized Security management


1 Centralized and Pervasive Security: MicroStrategy provides centralized security administration across the entire platform. Security can be managed for all reports and documents from a single location.

De-Centralized Security: BusinessObjects security is often defined in at least three tools: Universe Designer or Information Design Tool, Central Management Console and Business View Manager, increasing the chances of human error.

BusinessObjects’ two different data discovery tools require redundant security and maintenance. This results in extra manual work and spread-mart issues.

2 Object-Level Access Privileges: Administrators can assign access control privileges (read, write, use, delete, execute, and browse) on individual metadata objects like attributes metrics, filters, custom groups, and others.

Limited Flexibility Setting User Privileges: BusinessObjects offer administrators very limited granularity for setting group and user privileges. This limits the control administrators have over user access.

7

1.c.



SELF-SERVICE (DATA DISCOVERY) – AGILE ANALYTICS

Business friendly self-service analytics and rapid dashboard development


1 Integrated Self-Service over the Web: MicroStrategy Visual Insight is Web-based, thus, requires no separate installation before use. It is a drag-and-drop interface that supports advanced visualizations like Google map, network visualization, waterfall, heat map, and micro charts, thus, helping users efficiently display trends and anomalies in an aesthetically pleasing manner.

Two Separate Data Discovery Tools with Limited Integration: BusinessObjects has two tools – SAP Lumira and BusinessObjects Explorer. Explorer only supports visualizations with two dimensions and up to three measures. Users have no way of customizing these visualizations. The other tool is Desktop client called Lumira, which was released in May 2013 and currently only supports a single visualization at a time. The only way to have multiple visualizations is to create a story board.

2 Business friendly Graphical Query Builder: MicroStrategy provides a simple drag-and-drop style graphical query builder. Business users with little or no knowledge of SQL can easily define data relationship and create their own data model through the intuitive graphical interface.

Graphical Query Builder Not Provided: Neither SAP Lumira nor BusinessObjects Explorer provide a graphical interface to allow business users to drag-and-drop data fields to define data relationships while viewing the resulting data model as a diagram.

3 Built-in Best Practices for Visual Exploration: A number of visual exploration best practices embedded within the product. For example, visualization suggestion engine, auto geocoding, auto time hierarchy creation, multiple shelf's like color-by, and size-by for easy multidimensional analysis.

No Built-in Best Practices for Visual Exploration are Supported: BusinessObjects does not support a visualization suggestion mechanism in Lumira or Explorer.

4 Mobile Accessible Dashboards: Interactive visualizations created in Visual Insight can be viewed in any mobile device, thus, allowing the users to interact with data on the go.

Visualizations available on Mobile Devices: Starting version 4.1, the two mobile apps (Explorer and SAP Mobile) have been combined into one app. Now visualizations from both Lumira and Explorer can be seen on the same SAP Mobile app.

5 Data Blending Capabilities: MicroStrategy allows the definition of a single visualization with attributes/metrics feeding from multiple datasets (reports/cubes) from within Enterprise Dashboards and Visual insight. In addition, it allows joining modeled and un-modeled datasets.

Limited Data Blending Capabilities: SAP Lumira allows joining multiple data sources into a single cube. However, unlike MicroStrategy, it cannot join data between different cube data sources into a single visualization. Explorer does not support data blending capabilities.

Rapid data analysis and dashboard creation

8

Graphical Query Builder for easy data preparation

2.a.



SELF-SERVICE (DATA DISCOVERY) – SELF-SERVICE ARCHITECTURE

MicroStrategy’s Fully Integrated Data Discovery vs. BusinesObjects’ Limited Integration

9


1 Fully Integrated Data Discovery Utilizes Platform ACL’s: MicroStrategy Visual Insight is fully integrated with the MicroStrategy platform and provides the option to utilize the existing schema layer. This ensures reusability of datasets and a single version of the truth for all users. As a result, MicroStrategy enables a managed self-service environment free of spread-marts and data siloes. MicroStrategy Visual Insight automatically utilizes users’ object-level access control privileges from the platform security setup.

Partially Integrated Data Discovery: BusinessObjects’ two different data discovery tools require redundant security and maintenance. Duplicate access control privileges and object definitions create multiple versions of the truth. This results in extra manual work and spread-mart issues. SAP Lumira is not integrated with BusinessObjects platform. While Lumira supports Universes from versions 3.x and 4.x as data sources, it does not use BusinessObjects’ security, privileges, permissions etc. This is on the roadmap. Thus, users are left confused and concerned as Lumira is fractured from the enterprise.

2.b.

Single Version of the Truth

DWH Cube Cube DWH

Agility for business

Manageability and consistency for IT



ENTERPRISE-GRADE DASHBOARDS

MicroStrategy’s powerful dashboard creation vs. BusinessObjects’ limited dashboard experience


1 Fully Integrated Dashboards with Powerful and Flexible Design Experience: Developers have exceptional flexibility to create highly interactive, pixel-perfect dashboards. A number of design capabilities such as WYSIWYG interface, multi-tab and multi-layered layouts, large number of selector controls for filtering flexibility and performing targeted filtering, information windows for contextual pop-ups, dashboard linking and screen designing for building workflows, fine-grained formatting capabilities, and wealth of interactive visualizations and widget controls provide a flexible and powerful design experience.

Multiple Dashboarding Tools with Limitations in Design Experience: BusinessObjects currently sells two separate but overlapping dashboarding products: BusinessObjects Design Studio and BusinessObjects Dashboards (formerly known as Xcelsius) forcing users to choose between dashboards connecting to SAP HANA/BW cubes or a relational database. The two dashboarding tools are not integrated with each other, thus, the dashboard created in one tool, cannot be used/seen in the other.

Both the tools have limitations in certain features such as no native drill controls, no support for information windows, dashboard linking for building workflows, and multi-layered layouts, thus, providing a less flexible and powerful design experience.

2 Automatic Drill-Anywhere: Users can automatically drill through the full depth and breadth of the data warehouse and obtain detailed information.

No Automatic Drill Anywhere: Users can drill up and down within a pre-defined hierarchy. Users cannot drill outside a hierarchy or data source to explore the entire DWH, thus, limiting the drill experience.

3 Custom Dashboard Output: Powerful object prompting capability generate custom outputs depending on the selections made by the end users during run-time.

Limited Custom Dashboard Outputs: Object prompting is not supported. As a result, BusinessObjects is limited in terms of generating custom dashboard output at run-time.

4 Actionable Dashboards: Users can not only consume information but also initiate appropriate actions (write-back) from within the dashboards.

Not Actionable : Users cannot initiate write-back actions from within the dashboards interface.

Gain superior insights from content rich enterprise dashboards

3

10



MicroStrategy Mobile Ranked #1


1 Mobile Ready Reports and Dashboards: MicroStrategy allows users to run reports and dashboards directly on their iPad, iPhone, or Android devices. Because reports and dashboards in the BI application do not have to be re-authored for the mobile device, minimal additional IT investment is required for mobile deployment.

Limited Dashboard Features on the Mobile Device: As of version 4.1, the two Mobile apps (Explorer and Mobile) are now combined into one Mobile app – SAP Mobile. Now dashboards created in Explorer can be viewed on the SAP Mobile app. However, any dashboards created in prior version will not be supported. The Explorer dashboard have to be created in version 4.1.

2 Deliver Multimedia Content Through Mobile App: Deliver multiple forms of information (PDF, Videos, ePub, Presentations, etc.) within the same App.

Limited Capabilities to Deliver Multimedia Content: BusinessObjects does not provide a multimedia widget control like MicroStrategy. As a result, the capability to deliver multimedia content is limited.

3 Actionable Mobile Apps: Implement transactional capabilities into the information driven mobile apps.

Non-Actionable Mobile: BusinessObjects does not provide out-of-the-box transactional (write-back) capability.

4 Create Workflow-Driven Apps: MicroStrategy Mobile provides high degree of design flexibility to build multiple screens and combining them into a single workflow-driven app or dashboard.

Limited Flexibility to Create Custom Workflows : BusinessObjects mobile apps provide limited development flexibility to build intricate workflows of multiple screens and combining them into a seamless and intuitive dashboard

5 Deliver Rich Apps on Small Screen Devices: Ability to do screen design and workflows provide powerful capabilities to build apps for small screen devices.

Limitations on Small Screen Devices: Due to the smaller screen and lack of mouse-over capabilities, certain components and dashboard features are not supported on mobile devices.

NATIVE MOBILE BI APPS

MicroStrategy’s Native Mobile apps that users love vs. BusinessObjects’ limited Mobile capabilities 4

11



PROACTIVE BUSINESS MONITORING AND ALERTING

MicroStrategy’s proactive monitoring to improves business efficiency vs. BusinessObjects’ limited proactive monitoring

MicroStrategy Distribution Services acts as a

proactive information radar for the enterprise


1 Mass Distribution of Personalized Content (Report Bursting): Ability to deliver personalized slices of information from a single report to a large number of users

Limited Report Bursting Capability: BusinessObjects has very limited dynamic distribution list capabilities across the product set. Therefore, Administrators have to define fixed distribution lists and cannot use conditions to dynamically conform the recipient list. Scheduling/Distribution of dashboards is extremely limited.

2 Delivery of all Report Styles from a Unified Platform: Users can subscribe themselves or co-workers to receive all reports available in the MicroStrategy environment to a wide range of output devices.

Alerting Capabilities Vary by Tool: BusinessObjects lacks a consistent approach to alerts with its tools. For example, WebIntelligence and Crystal Reports have different alerting capabilities.

3 Personal Exception Thresholds: Business users can define personal exception thresholds, for example, send me the report when inventory level falls below “x” units. This capability allows users to set up information radar to proactively monitor their business processes.

Limited Exception Based Thresholds: Crystal Reports does support exception-based alerting. However, WebIntelligence does not. Thus, users using WebIntelligence reports cannot set up proactive notifications based on threshold condition.

5

12


Third Party Or Otherwise Use This Presentation For Any Purpose Other Than An Evaluation Of MicroStrategy's Business Or Its Offerings. Reproduction or Distribution Is Prohibited. 13

Transaction Services is fully integrated into MicroStrategy’s organically grown platform

TRANSACTIONS AND WRITE-BACK

MicroStrategy’s Actionable dashboard and mobile apps vs. BusinessObjects’ non-actionable dashboards


1 Data Written Back to the Data Source: MicroStrategy Transaction Services can not only write back to the data warehouses, datamarts, and ERP/Operational Systems, but also to Web Services Applications (like Salesforce.com).

Not Supported

2 Multiple Formats of Data Input Supported: Multiple control styles for data input are supported such as – text/numeric fields, calendar dates, time, binary values, drop-down lists, slider, steppers, switches, and camera.

Not Supported

3 Transactional Mobile Intelligence: MicroStrategy supports business process to be performed from a Mobile transaction app without using any traditional format.

Not Supported

6



Create Comprehensive, Interactive Reports in a Number of Styles with MicroStrategy Enterprise Reporting

OPERATIONAL REPORTING AND BUSINESS DOCUMENTS

Pixel-perfect business documents like invoices & billing statements


1 Templates for Rapid Design: MicroStrategy provides out-of-the-box templates for report design and the ability to create custom templates to decrease design time.

Limitations in Available Templates for Report Design: Template functionality varies by tool. BusinessObjects has two tools for Operational Reporting – WebIntelligence, and Crystal Reports. Crystal Reports have an online catalog of report templates that can be used as starting point. But WebIntelligence does not have the capability to provide out-of-the-box report templates.

2 Real-Time WYSIWYG Report Design: Highly formatted documents are built using WYSIWYG report design and formatting over a zero-footprint Web interface.

Limitations in Real-Time WYSIWYG Report Design: SAP Crystal Reports does not offer web users a way to edit and format the report layout while viewing it, for a real-time WYSIWYG view of their changes. The design changes are done on the desktop version, and Web is used just for consumption. This increases the design time due to unnecessary iterations and design frustration.

7

14



ADVANCED INTERACTIVITY

Interact with different levels of data through Prompting, Drilling, and Searching


1 Dynamic Report Personalization: Object prompts enable users to dynamically select which report objects they want to see by authoring the report set at runtime. As a result, a single report can span hundreds of possible data combinations tailored to different user needs. MicroStrategy displays prompt values and report content that are permitted by the user's security profile. MicroStrategy prompts enable different users to personalize the same report and give them significant ad hoc capabilities.

Limited Dynamic Report Personalization: BusinessObjects offers limited options for parameterized reports. Object or column prompts such as selection of attributes, metrics, and filters on the fly are not supported. This causes an unnecessary number of reports to be created and maintained for end users.

2 Drill Anywhere: MicroStrategy users can drill anywhere in the entire data warehouse or across multiple data sources for boundary-free investigative analysis. Users can automatically drill within or across hierarchies without pre-defining drill paths. They can also modify report contents on-the-fly and further deepen the investigation by drilling outside of an Intelligent Cube to perform OLAP analysis.

Lack of Automatic Drill-Anywhere: As of version 4.1, BusinessObjects does not have automatic drill anywhere capabilities across reports. All drill paths across cubes and across reports have to be manually defined by IT or report developers.

3 Google-Like Search for Quick Data Access: MicroStrategy users can not only search for reports and dashboards but also any other metadata objects using auto-complete, suggested matches, and instant search results with multi-level Google-like search capabilities. Granular object-level search allows users to locate analytical objects easily, preventing redundant object creation and promoting object reuse.

Limited Search Functionality: BusinessObjects allows search by document attributes as well as content. It does have a quick search functionality that only shows the top six results sorted by relevance as the user types. There is no way to increase the number of search results. In addition, the search needs to be done through the search toolbar. BusinessObjects does have the capability to include a search selector inside a dashboard, where users can search at run time.

8

15

Powerful Personalization Automatic Drill Anywhere Multi-Level Search



PERFORMANCE AND SCALABILITY

High scalable BI platform with superior performance 9

16


Push-Down Architecture: MicroStrategy is widely recognized by industry analysts & customers as a highly scalable enterprise BI platform. MicroStrategy leverages the database to its fullest extent by pushing data joins and analytic calculations to the database whenever possible.

Mid-Tier Centric Processing: Data joins across multiple sources, and many calculations are performed at the mid-tier level resulting in unnecessary data movement and poor utilization of database processing power.

High Performance Multi-Pass SQL: Multi-pass SQL queries provide greater analytical power and minimize the amount of data that is pulled back to the mid-tier. MicroStrategy’s SQL engine is one of the most sophisticated in the industry and leverages multi-pass SQL in order to increase performance.

Limited Multi-Pass SQL Capabilities: BusinessObjects does not dynamically generate multi-pass SQL. Therefore, it has limitations answering complex questions in an efficient way by leveraging the database and analytical engine in the middle-tier. Multi-stage calculations such as percentage to total, and contribution metrics needs to be created at the report level.

Automatic Aggregate Awareness: MicroStrategy maximizes database usage and enhances performance for every analysis by making use of common data warehouse optimization techniques like aggregate tables and table partitioning.

No Automatic Aggregate Awareness: BusinessObjects SQL engine does not support automatic aggregate awareness, thus, unable to map a single attribute to many fact tables and selecting the most efficient table to obtain the data during run-time. This is more of a manual process where the aggregate logic has to be coded in.

Parallel SQL Execution: Multiple passes of SQL can be executed in parallel to improve query performance.

No Parallel SQL Execution: Multiple passes of SQL cannot be executed in parallel to improve performance.

Push-down Joining Uses the DBMS Engine

Multi-pass SQL

Multi-dimensional

Business Model

Joins across databases happen at the client

side

Minimum data movement across the

network Heavy data

movement across the network

Push-down architecture to fully leverage database processing power MicroStrategy Top ranked Vendor in data volume; SAP BO WebI rated below average

Source: The BI Survey 13 Normalized score relative to the weighted

average of 1.0; higher numbers indicate greater overall score.



ADMINISTRATION EFFICIENCY

Higher efficiency using administration and automation tools vs. limited administration tools


1 Workflow Automation: MicroStrategy System Manager merges different administrative tasks, such as creating users, starting or stopping server, and many others into a single workflow. It is also possible to combine non-MicroStrategy processes into the workflow.

No Workflow Automation: BusinessObjects does not provide any workflow automation tool.

2 Object Management and Migrations: MicroStrategy Object Manager facilitates metadata life cycle management. The presence of a single metadata repository increases change management accuracy and efficiency.

Object Management Available: SAP BusinessObjects Lifecycle Management is a web-based application that allows migration of BI resources from one system to the other. However, it does not automatically comprehensively check for dependencies when changes in metadata objects occur given its inability to support metadata content across the entire product set.

3 Automated Integrity Checking: MicroStrategy Integrity Manager automates the report comparison process and verifies the consistency of reports by comparing both the SQL and the pixels of copies of reports and highlights any inconsistencies. This automated process eliminates the need of manual consistency checking, resulting in huge time savings while upgrading to a newer versions or during object migrations.

Limited Integrity and Regression Testing: BusinessObjects provides some data integrity checking. However, the limited granularity and flexibility of the tool does not allow the automation of highly parameterized reports that examine different scenarios based on the prompt answers.

4 Automatic Creation of Most Useful Cubes: Cube Advisor recommends and automatically creates an optimal set of In-memory Cubes based on usage patterns of users accessing the BI system. This process considerably reduces administration workload and provides an efficient way to quickly improves response times of the most time consuming and frequently accessed reports.

No Support for Automatic Creation of Cubes: BusinessObjects does not provide any Cube Advisor tool that would recommend in-memory ROLAP cubes to reduce database processing and response time for BI applications.

5 Automated Command Line Scripts: MicroStrategy Command Manager reduces repetitive and time consuming administrative tasks through automated command line scripts.

No Automated Command Line Scripts for Administrative Tasks: BusinessObjects does not provide a comprehensive command line administrative tool for high volume tasks across the product set, making administration across several departmental BI applications more time consuming.

10

17

BUSINESSOBJECTS’ LIMITED

ADMINISTRATION



DEPLOYMENT FLEXIBILITY

BI on-premises or in the cloud


1 Deploy Platform On-Premises or in the Cloud: The platform itself can be deployed both on-premise and in a traditional software model or through the Cloud environment. MicroStrategy Cloud offers a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offering which includes a MicroStrategy BI service, plus the option of adding integrated data warehouse and data integration capabilities.

No Integrated PaaS Option: SAP BusinessObjects only offers its enterprise BI cloud solution through partners. So whatever services are offered (support, payment model, data integration, etc.) depends a lot on what the partner is able to provide.

2 Access Data Instantly via MicroStrategy Analytics Express (SaaS): Business users can instantly connect to their data and explore it using powerful and intuitive data visualizations. No installation required as all capabilities are available through a zero-footprint Web based SaaS solution.

Supports a SaaS-based BI offering: SAP BusinessObjects now offers SAP Lumira Cloud (released July 2013).

3 Securely Explore Data using the Free MicroStrategy Analytics Desktop: MicroStrategy offers a free solution to explore your data securely using a desktop application. The free solution not only allow accessing Excel Files, and Flat files but also all major databases and even big data sources.

Restrictive Free Offering: SAP Lumira Personal Edition is available for free, but only allows access to Excel data (CSV, XLS, and XLSX). In order to connect to all major databases, including SAP HANA, users have to buy the Standard Edition.

Run MicroStrategy Analytics Platform on-

premises (PaaS)

Deploy secure, expertly managed BI Platform in

the Cloud

Start exploring in the cloud with the free MicroStrategy

Analytics Express (SaaS)

11

18

BI Platform Agile BI

Start exploring data with free MicroStrategy Analytics Desktop

Analytics Express



“BI Scorecard is the only analyst firm that tests BI suites hands-on, based on over 300 detailed criteria, and with the customer perspective in mind.”

BI Scorecard

INDUSTRY ANALYST

Get unbiased perspective from one of the top industry analysts – BiScorecard 12

19

Source: BI Scorecard® Strategic and Product Summary – Q4 2013.

MicroStrategy vs. BusinessObjects

• No functional gaps, superior breadth

• Industry’s best architecture

• Highest-rated overall in self-service BI

Software

MicroStrategy 9 vs SAP BusinessObjects 4.1