Analyst Perspectives

We are happy to offer some insights on MicroStrategy drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. Earlier this year we published the Ventana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019, the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts. We then developed three additional Value Indexes on Analytics and BI focusing on Mobile, Embedded and Collaborative capabilities. Because each is a critical aspect of modern business intelligence, we developed specific criteria for each in order to provide an in-depth look at features geared specifically to mobile, embedded and collaborative use.

In all of our Value Indexes we utilize a structured research methodology that includes evaluation categories designed to reflect real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal (RFP) and vendor selection process for analytics and business intelligence. We evaluated MicroStrategy and 14 other vendors in seven categories, five relevant to the product (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each category to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on our experience and on data derived from our benchmark research on analytics and business intelligence.

MicroStrategy’s product offers one of the most complete sets of capabilities we encountered in our Value Index assessment. The product line consists of a number of different modules to deliver this functionality. In recent years the company has reduced the complexity of installing and using these components and has significantly improved the user interface. The architecture is based on a model of direct access to data in a variety of commercial database products including connectivity to Hadoop.

MicroStrategy ranks second overall in the Value Index, with just a fractional percentage separating it from the first-place finisher. The product ranks first in the Capability and Reliability categories and second in Usability. MicroStrategy scores well in many of the categories we assess and is particularly strong in its architecture, flexibility and scalability. It ranks a close second in Usability based not only on the user interface of its products but also because it provides capabilities designed for various roles including lines of business personnel, analysts, managers, executives and IT personnel.

MOBILE ANALYTICS & BI

MicroStrategy delivers native mobile applications for iOS and Android. These applications offer rich user interactions and exploit many mobile platform capabilities such as location awareness, camera integration and offline or disconnected interactions. The company also ranks highest in our evaluation of IT support related to mobile capabilities. MicroStrategy ranks first overall in this Value Index.

EMBEDDED ANALYTICS & BI

MicroStrategy’s architecture is based on a model of direct access to data in a variety of commercial database products including connectivity to Hadoop. MicroStrategy ranks first overall in this Value Index. It ranks well across most of the criteria we evaluate — the company is near the top in integration and customization features.

COLLABORATIVE ANALYTICS & BI

MicroStrategy is strong in communicating and publishing information, though less so in social-media-style interactions. Documents are deliverable in a variety of formats and can include comments and annotations to draw attention to specific items requiring attention or action. MicroStrategy scores the highest among all vendors for its personalization capabilities. It also offers strong alerting and automated agents, which can be used to initiate collaboration among line of business personnel.

MicroStrategy ranks fourth overall in this Value Index and fifth in the Capability category. The company could further improve its strong scores with more social-media-style discussion capabilities and by improving aspects of coordination among participants in the analytic process such as the ability to assign tasks and track them to completion.

The company’s lowest rankings are for TCO/ROI and Manageability, where it ranks ninth and seventh respectively. In the latter category, the leading products in this area offer slightly better flexibility across both business and IT administration of the system. Leaders also provide somewhat better tools to establish and document the business value of an investment in their products.

This assessment was based on MicroStrategy 10.11. In January the company released MicroStrategy 2019, which is a platform update. It includes a new feature called HyperIntelligence that enhances integration and collaboration. The release also includes enhancements for analysts, data scientists, developers and administrators. These advancements and efforts significantly broaden its reach and support for use across the enterprise. It also was recently awarded our Overall Digital Innovation Award for HyperIntelligence.

This research-based index is the most comprehensive assessment of the value of analytics and business intelligence software in the industry. Technology buyers can learn more about how to use our Value Index by clicking here and included vendors that wish to learn more can click here. Read the report here.

Regards

Ventana Research