MicroStrategy Announces New Version of its 7i Business Intelligence Platform Tailored to Help Companies Implement Transparent Financial Reporting Systems
Exceptional Capabilities & Speed of Deployment
McLEAN, Va., (September 09, 2002) –
Addressing the urgent new industry need for transparent financial tracking and reporting, MicroStrategy® Incorporated (NASDAQ: MSTR), a leading worldwide provider of business intelligence software, today unveiled a new version (7.2.1) of its MicroStrategy 7i (TM) platform designed specifically to meet the demanding new requirements for financial reporting and analysis imposed on business by new government mandates. MicroStrategy believes that its product contains the most sophisticated, yet easy-to-use features for this market.
“MicroStrategy’s new financial reporting features are specifically designed to help public companies, who now face new statutory requirements, get better visibility into their financial records and allow their officers to certify their statements with confidence,” said MicroStrategy’s Vice Chairman and COO Sanju Bansal. “Of no less importance, these new features allow very fast deployment of Web-based financial reporting systems — companies can deploy an operational system within 90-120 days rather than the usual 6-12 months.”
Limitations of Existing Financial Reporting Systems
MicroStrategy underscored that some financial systems cannot provide the financial transparency needed to meet the requirements of new SEC rules and the new federal Sarbanes-Oxley statute. The company said that some accounting systems provide only rudimentary reporting functionality, lack analytic breadth, and cannot provide interactive data analysis to a wide population of users. MicroStrategy also noted that existing budgeting and planning applications offered by Hyperion and Cognos are unable to drill down to the full depths of transactional data and cannot perform automated fraud or anomaly detection.
New Financial Reporting Capabilities in MicroStrategy 7i
The latest release of MicroStrategy’s 7i platform includes new financial report presentation and analytical features that support:
* Delivery of GAAP-compliant reports that can replace those typically produced manually by finance or accounting.
* Delivery of additional business reports that allow managers at all levels to focus on the performance of their organization, view trends, and spot financial anomalies.
* Seamless drill down from summary reports to the lowest level of transaction or journal entry.
* Analysis of the accounting treatment of all transactions.
* Production of highly formatted financial reports.
* Access by hundreds or thousands of users with the highest levels of data security.
* Automatic data mining for anomaly detection and proactive alerts to specified individuals whenever an anomaly is detected.
The system can also be easily modified and extended to meet expanding reporting and data requirements. Summary and detailed reports are broken into seven main areas of analysis, specifically:
1) Accounts Receivable
2) Accounts Payable
3) Balance Sheet
4) Profit and Loss Statements
5) Costs/Expenses
6) Revenues & Forecasts
7) Planning & Forecasting
MicroStrategy 7i can report on data contained in SAP, Oracle, J.D. Edwards, PeopleSoft, and Baan financial systems, as well as data in custom-developed financial applications, providing greater transparency without expensive modifications to these installed financial applications.
MicroStrategy Partners Praise MicroStrategy 7i’s New Financial Features
“MicroStrategy 7i’s new features provide businesses with tools they need to be vigilant about their financial data,” said Richard Skriletz, National Managing Principal for Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing at RCG Information Technology, Inc (www.rcgit.com). “With the system, companies can consolidate all financial data into a consistent information warehouse; put many more eyes on the data; deliver live reports that allow users to drill to the lowest level of detail at any time; and proactively scour their databases for financial anomalies.”
Doug Slemmer, President of IOLAP, a business intelligence consulting firm (www.iolap.com), pointed to a new survey (by Cap Gemini Ernst & Young and CFO Research Services and reported in Information Week) that found that more than six in 10 CFOs complain that “their budgeting, forecasting and decision-support systems are inadequate or insufficiently integrated.” He added: “With the CEOs and CFOs of all public companies now required to certify their financial reports, the obligation to monitor the accuracy of financial data is more critical than ever.”
For more information, please visit
http://www.microstrategy.com/financial_quicktour.
About MicroStrategy Incorporated.
Leadership in a Critical Market: Founded in 1989, MicroStrategy is a worldwide leader in the increasingly critical business intelligence software market. Large and small companies alike are harnessing MicroStrategy’s business intelligence software to gain vital insights from their data to help them proactively enhance cost-efficiency, productivity and customer relations and optimize revenue-generating strategies. MicroStrategy’s business intelligence platform offers exceptional capabilities that provide organizations — in virtually all facets of their operations — with user-friendly solutions to their data query, reporting, and advanced analytical needs, and distributes valuable insight on this data to users via Web, wireless, and voice. PC Magazine selected MicroStrategy 7(TM) as the 2001 “Editors’ Choice” for business intelligence software.
Enterprise-Class Business Intelligence: MicroStrategy 7i(TM) is a truly integrated, enterprise-class, Web-based business intelligence platform. With MicroStrategy 7i, enterprises can now standardize on one business intelligence platform and deploy high-value business intelligence enterprise-wide. MicroStrategy 7i’s configurable query, reporting, and OLAP Web interface is designed to support all users, from casual report viewers to power analysts.
Diverse Customer Base: MicroStrategy’s customer base cuts across industry and sector lines, with over 1,700 enterprise-class customers, including Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse, AT&T Wireless Group, Wachovia and GlaxoSmithKline. MicroStrategy also has relationships with over 400 systems integrators and application development and platform partners, including IBM, PeopleSoft, Hewlett-Packard, and JD Edwards.
MicroStrategy is listed on Nasdaq under the symbol MSTR. For more information on the company, or to purchase or demo MicroStrategy’s software, please visit MicroStrategy’s Web site at http://www.microstrategy.com.
This press release may include statements that may constitute “forward- looking statements,” including its estimates of future business prospects or financial results and statements containing the words “believe,” “estimate,” “project,” “expect” or similar expressions. Forward-looking statements inherently involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results of MicroStrategy Incorporated and its subsidiaries (collectively, the “Company”) to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Factors that could contribute to such differences include: the Company’s ability to secure financing for its current operations and long-term plans on acceptable terms; the ability of the Company to implement and achieve widespread customer acceptance of its MicroStrategy 7i software on a timely basis; the Company’s ability to recognize deferred revenue through delivery of products or satisfactory performance of services; the Company’s ability to effect the sale of non-core assets on reasonable terms; continued acceptance of the Company’s products in the marketplace; the timing of significant orders; delays in the Company’s ability to develop or ship new products; market acceptance of new products; competitive factors; general economic conditions; currency fluctuations; and other risks detailed in the Company’s registration statements and periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. By making these forward-looking statements, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these statements for revisions or changes after the date of this release.
MicroStrategy, MicroStrategy Business Intelligence Platform, MicroStrategy 7, MicroStrategy 7i 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.
Marc Brailov
MicroStrategy Incorporated
(703) 770-1670
mbrailov@microstrategy.com
Source: MicroStrategy