MicroStrategy 9 vs.

QlikTech (QlikView 11)

A Comparison White Paper

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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 and 7,881,443. Other patent
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MicroStrategy vs. QlikTech

I. Executive Summary.......................................................................................................................... 4
II. Comparison of MicroStrategy 9 and QlikView 11 on the Key BI Capabilities.............................. 5
1. Delivering More BI with Less IT Effort - MicroStrategy Delivers the Lowest TCO............................... 7
2. All User Needs through a Single Platform...................................................................................... 11
3. Self-Service Through a Fast and Intuitive Web Interface................................................................. 15
4. High Performance at Any Scale..................................................................................................... 19
5. Quick to Implement and Deploy, Easy to Maintain and Administer................................................ 24
6. Highly Interactive and Flexible Mobile Intelligence......................................................................... 28
7. Deep Insight through Superior Analytics....................................................................................... 33
8. Flexible Technology for Departmental to Enterprise BI................................................................... 36
III. MicroStrategy A Market Proven, Industrial-Strength Technology........................................... 39

I. Executive Summary
In the Business Intelligence (BI) marketplace, MicroStrategy competes vigorously with vendors such as QlikTech. At
first glance, it would seem that companies can use either MicroStrategy 9 or QlikView 11 to support their reporting
and analysis needs. However, throughout the implementation and maintenance of BI applications, companies are
realizing significant differences in the BI capabilities between MicroStrategy and the less robust and less integrated
BI technologies of QlikTech. MicroStrategys organically grown architecture delivers superior performance, scalability,
usability, efficiency, and reliability, all of which impact the total cost of ownership, user adoption, and ultimately, the
success of the BI project.
As user and business requirements have become more complex, IT budgets nonetheless have come under
increasing pressure. Organizations need to deliver BI solutions in light of expanding user requirements, increasing
amounts of data, and differing data sources with a minimal amount of IT resources. Non-robust BI architectures
require higher amounts of IT effort because of the basic nature of deploying immature BI technologies which leads
to redundant and repetitive administration and the constant development of one-off workarounds. In contrast,
organically-developed BI architectures like MicroStrategys require the minimum amount of IT effort needed to
deploy and maintain BI applications, and can empower business people to create their own reports without reliance
on IT personnel.
MicroStrategy 9 offers business users a redefined user interface for a fast and intuitive user experience where
they can access consistent information through secure Web, Microsoft Office, and mobile device interfaces.
MicroStrategys advanced analytical capabilities, such as predictive analytics and in-memory analysis, provide users
with fast and deep insight. With MicroStrategys scalable architecture and a single metadata, users can seamlessly
navigate from scorecards and dashboards to reports and analysis without being required to open and close multiple
BI tools and navigate dissimilar interfaces.
MicroStrategy 9 is advanced technology that allows companies to support all types of BI applications with a
single technology. MicroStrategy 9 builds on MicroStrategys unique strengths at the high-end of BI to extend the
boundaries of performance, scalability, and efficiency of enterprise BI. At the same time, MicroStrategy 9 brings
quick-to-deploy BI technology easily within reach of smaller departmental BI initiatives through features such as
multi-source data access, In-memory ROLAP, and Visual Insight. Just as importantly, MicroStrategy 9 provides a
smooth migration path for islands of departmental BI to merge into a cohesive and consistent enterprise-wide
framework. With MicroStrategy 9, even as departmental BI applications are consolidated into the enterprise-wide
framework, departments can continue to retain the significant autonomy and nimbleness that they enjoyed previously.
For nearly 20 years, MicroStrategy customers have gained an edge over their competitors with fast, agile analysis
using MicroStrategys best-of-breed technology. Companies and industry analysts widely recognize MicroStrategy
for its administration-friendly architecture, robust security, self-service zero-footprint Web interface, and proven user
and data scalability.
This document discusses in detail the key differences between MicroStrategy 9 and QlikView 11.

II. Comparison of MicroStrategy 9 and QlikView 11 on the Key BI

Capabilities
Business intelligence has the power to provide performance feedback and visibility to all people in an organization,
thus enabling businesses to make better decisions every day. However, not all BI technologies deliver on this
promise, falling short on a number of key capabilities demanded of enterprise BI applications. A complete and
efficient BI platform must provide organizations with the following key capabilities:
Key BI Capabilities
1. Delivering More BI with Less IT Effort ....................................................................................................... pg.7
MicroStrategy technology requires far fewer IT personnel for a given amount of BI users because its reusable
metadata is easier to maintain, requiring less redundancy. MicroStrategy is easier to maintain also because it
provides end users with more self-service capabilities that offload work from the IT staff, and also provides a
comprehensive suite of administrative tools, requiring fewer IT administrators. On the other hand, QlikView
report developers are forced to create redundant report metadata as the metadata they create cannot be reused
across reports. QlikView administrators have fewer tools that allow them to centrally monitor and manage BI
applications, thus requiring more administrators per number of end users.
2. All User Needs through a Single Platform.................................................................................................pg.11
MicroStrategy users can access any style of BI via a unified and home-grown BI platform. MicroStrategy users get
a single version of the truth through interactive Web, Microsoft Office, and mobile device interfaces. QlikView
users are limited in the breadth of BI styles they can accomplish. QlikView users typically must recreate metadata
with each report, thus promoting multiple versions of the truth."
3. Self-Service Through a Fast and Intuitive Web Interface.........................................................................pg.15
To enhance usability, the MicroStrategy Web interface adopts many familiar paradigms including ribbon toolbars,
accordion controls, control-click multi-select capability, and context-sensitive right-click actions. MicroStrategys
next-generation of advanced self-service functionality is designed to provide more control to business users. The
MicroStrategy advanced self-service interface provides incredible speed-of-interactivity, stunning visualizations,
drag-and-drop manipulations, and instant results, thus allowing business users to rapidly go from data to
decisions. QlikView provides limited self-service capabilities. In order to create QlikView documents users must
first extract data from different data sources by writing a QlikView script; writing the QlikView script requires
experience with SQL. QlikView does not provide advanced self-service capabilities like visual analysis and
simplified data import through Web interface.
4. H
 igh Performance at Any Scale................................................................................................................. pg.19
MicroStrategys high performance at any scale is possible given its In-memory ROLAP architecture, which leverages
the database for much of its processing. Data joins and analytic calculations are processed in the database
whenever possible. MicroStrategys unique multi-pass approach provides the flexibility to answer any analytical
question in the most optimal manner. QlikView stores all data and performs all calculations in memory on the
middle-tier server. QlikView does not fully leverage the relational database or the hard disk on the middle-tier.
These aspects of the QlikView architecture result in inefficient resource utilization and limit QlikViews scalability.

5. Q
 uick to Implement and Deploy, Easy to Maintain and Administer...................................................... pg.24
MicroStrategy provides organizations a platform that is quick to implement and deploy as well as easy to
maintain and administer, fueled by a single code base that offers the advantage of reusable business logic across
the entire platform. MicroStrategys single BI server provides efficient, centralized administration for IT and fewer
moving parts, which translates into less downtime. QlikView lacks a common reusable metadata layer that is
shared across documents. This creates a maintenance challenge as developers are typically forced to continually
and manually synchronize metric definitions and security profiles across documents.
6. Highly Interactive and Flexible Mobile Intelligence................................................................................ pg.28
MicroStrategy Mobile extends BI capabilities on mobile devices well beyond traditional grid and graph reports
and provides exceptional flexibility for creating purpose-built, workflow-driven mobile applications. MicroStrategy
Mobile apps are built using a metadata-driven, point-and-click development paradigm, fully utilizing the
MicroStrategy BI platform infrastructure, security, and reusable metadata components. As a result, mobile
applications are faster and easier to create, easier to maintain, and provide the administration efficiencies needed
to deploy to hundreds of thousands of users while providing the industry's lowest total cost of ownership.
QlikView treats mobile devices as just another interface to deliver traditional BI. The QlikView mobile interface
is not designed to use the powerful capabilities of mobile devices, and lacks the ability to provide a rich user
experience that mobile users are accustomed to.
7. Deep Insight through Superior Analytics.................................................................................................. pg.33
The MicroStrategy BI platform provides an extensive set of data manipulation and analytic options to allow
the user to delve deeply into a report to identify and discover important trends and patterns in the data. Users
can drill anywhere in the entire data warehouse for boundary-free investigative analysis. Report designers and
analysts can view and embed predictive analytics in reports and then distribute them to all relevant decision
makers and stakeholders. QlikView does not automatically provide drill anywhere capabilities across all reports.
Report developers must pre-define all drill paths for each chart. QlikView is limited in the data mining and
sophisticated predictive analytic capabilities that are available out-of-the-box.
8. Flexible Technology for Departmental to Enterprise BI.......................................................................... pg.36
MicroStrategys metadata reusability and life cycle management tools, such as MicroStrategy Object Manager,
enable departments to incrementally migrate their business logic into a consolidated enterprise BI environment.
QlikView lacks an enterprise metadata layer and the tools required to consolidate disconnected QlikView
applications into one enterprise-wide BI application.

The following section of the white paper provides a side-by-side evaluation of MicroStrategy 9 and QlikView 11
along the key BI capabilities.

1. Delivering More BI with Less IT Effort - MicroStrategy Delivers the Lowest TCO
With IT budgets under increasing scrutiny and business requirements becoming more complex, todays
organizations need to critically examine BI costs. The costs of BI extend beyond the initial acquisition. An IDC study,
Demonstrating Business Value: Selling to Your C-Level Executives, concludes, Because the single largest factor
affecting TCO is staffing cost, IT initiatives that can reduce IT labor costs are likely to find greater acceptance among
financial decision makers, and initiatives that enable IT consolidation or automation can significantly reduce TCO
across the IT infrastructure. Figure 1 shows that over three years, IT staffing constitutes between 60 and 71% of BI
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). 1

Three-Year Total Cost of Ownership is Dominated by IT Personnel Costs

Three-Year Total Cost of Ownership Breakdown

Software (7%)

Outsourced Costs
(3%)

Server Hardware
(7%)
IT Staff Training
(8%)
Staffing (60%)
Downtime User
Productivity
(15%)
Source: IDC 2007.

Figure 1: Staffing Costs Consume a Majority of Three-Year Software Lifecycle Costs

Three-year total cost of ownership for BI systems is dominated by costs related to IT personnel: IT personnel costs
account for 71% of total costs = Staffing (60%) + Outsourcing Costs (3%) + Staff Training (8%).

Customers and leading industry analysts alike recognize MicroStrategys ability to deliver BI to more users and a
great amount of data with fewer IT staff than other BI vendors. Many MicroStrategy customers have expanded their
BI deployments while saving millions of dollars a year in staffing costs by switching from non-MicroStrategy BI tools
to MicroStrategys efficient and scalable self-service BI platform. To save costs and ensure successful BI solutions,
decision makers must evaluate the key BI capabilities that reduce IT efforts and make the BI platform easier to
implement, deploy, maintain, and administer.

IDC. Demonstrating Business Value: Selling to Your C-Level Executives. Three Year Server TCO. Based on more than 300
interviews conducted across numerous platforms, presented in composite form.

MicroStrategy Ranked Highest for Administration Efficiency

MicroStrategy Ranked #1 for Administration Efficiency

arplan

1.18

Bissantz

0.39

Board

1.02

Cubeware

0.55
N/A

IBM Cognos Analysis

IBM Cognos Reporting

1.72

IBM Cognos TM1

N/A

Information Builders

N/A

Infor PM

N/A

Jedox PALO

N/A

Microsoft SSAS

0.59

Microsoft SSRS

N/A

MicroStrategy

2.40

MIK

1.96

Oracle BIEE

N/A

Oracle Hyperion

N/A

Pentaho

N/A

QlikTech

0.71

SAP BO Webl

2.16

N/A

SAP BO Deskl
SAP BW/ BEx Suite

1.96
N/A

SAS

1.51

TARGIT
0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

1.2

1.4

1.6

1.8

2.0

2.2

2.4

Source: The BI Survey 9 (2010) This chart provides a KPI score for the deployed seats per administrator head. The KPI is calculated so
that higher administration costs lead to a lower KPI and vice versa.
Figure 2: MicroStrategy Technology is Recognized for its Ability to Support Many More Users for Each IT Administrator

MicroStrategy technology requires far fewer IT personnel for a given amount of BI users because its metadata is
inherently easier to maintain and because end users have more self-service capabilities that offload work from the
IT staff.

We evaluated several leading BI products and, using a total cost of ownership model, determined
that MicroStrategy had the best combination of ease-of-use, time-to-market, successful retail

IT Senior Coordinator of Purchasing,

implementations, and robust analytical capabilities.

Private Label and Reporting, Whole Foods Market

The following table lists out key capabilities in which the MicroStrategy 9 platform helps organizations reduce costs
when designing, deploying, administering and maintaining BI applications.

KEY COST REDUCING

CAPABILITY
Dynamic Report
Personalization

Minimizing Design Effort

Automatic Multi-source
Drill Anywhere

Formatting over the Web

QLIKVIEW 11

MicroStrategy has very robust Prompting

engine. End users can dynamically
author reports at run time by selecting
attributes, metrics, metric levels,
templates, filters, and even hierarchies.
This greatly reduces report design
dependency on IT and the number of
reports for IT to maintain.

QlikView can simulate basic prompting on

attribute and metric values using sliders
and selectors. However, QlikView does
not provide object or column prompts
(i.e. prompts for selecting filters, metrics,
hierarchies, etc.), so business users
cannot easily author reports at run-time.

YES

YES

LIMITED

LIMITED

Business users can automatically drill

anywhere to any data source without IT
hard coding.
YES

One Repository of
Reusable Business Logic

One Report Design

Automatically Deploys
to Any Interface

Browser Agnostic
Zero-footprint Web

YES

Eliminates client installation costs and

ensures application is automatically
updated.

YES

YES

The QlikView Zero-Footprint Client (ZFC)

supports only a subset of the functionality
supported by the QlikView IE plug-in
client. The layout fidelity and functionality
supported by the ZFC is also low. As a
result, the deployment scenarios of ZFC
are limited and restrictive.
LIMITED

Upgradable plug-ins instantly customize

to corporate look and feel without
coding effort.
Customizations are managed in a central
location and can be upgraded with
minimal IT effort.

Automated Deployment

Deploying to the zero-footprint client

(ZFC) interface requires further HTML
coding to achieve the desired dashboard
layout.
LIMITED

Provides secure access for any browser

without IT effort or reliance on ActiveX
downloads or IE Active X dependence.
Easy to Customize and
Upgrade

QlikView provides capabilities to slice and

dice data. However, it does not provide
the capabilities to perform ad hoc visual
analysis of data.

LIMITED

The same report design is automatically

optimized for interacting through all
interfaces including Web browsers,
mobile devices, and Microsoft Office; and
formats including PDF, Flash, and HTML.
YES

Business logic for each report is defined

and contained within the report, and
cannot be reused across reports.
LIMITED

MicroStrategy Visual Insight allows

business users to intuitively visualize, filter,
and drill into their data. The drag-anddrop, WYSIWYG interface allows business
users to make data driven decision quickly
and without any IT involvement.
YES

WYSIWYG formatting requires the

installation of ActiveX plug-in, thus
forcing users to use Internet Explorer.

NO

Report developers can reuse all existing

business logic across the entire platform
rather than spending time recreating
business logic.
YES

Report developers must pre-define drill

sequences for each chart.

LIMITED

Easy What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get
(WYSIWYG) formatting allows business
users to format reports at runtime
without IT support.

Visual Analysis for Rapid

Decision Making

Minimizing Deployment Effort

MICROSTRATEGY 9

Customizations to the zero-footprint

interface must be continually reapplied
every time the interface is redesigned or
upgraded, making customizations difficult
to maintain.

NO

Automated life cycle management tool

synchronizes objects across development,
test, and production environments thus
greatly reducing manual work associated
with BI deployments.
9

Incremental updates made in a

development environment cannot be
easily merged or synchronized into the
production environment.

Minimizing
Deployment Effort

KEY COST REDUCING

CAPABILITY
Data Import from the
Web Interface

Single Server

MICROSTRATEGY 9
YES

NO

Minimizing Administration Effort

Out-of-the-Box
System-wide Monitoring

YES

YES

Automated Report
and Data Integrity
Checking

Minimizing Maintenance Effort

YES

YES

Highly Reusable Business

Metadata

Scalable In-Memory
ROLAP Architecture

Automatic Change
Management

YES

10

QlikView provides very limited metadata

reusability. This forces report developers
to spend more time redundantly creating
report objects.

QlikView is an in-memory only product.

In order for QlikView users to access data
assets, the data must first be moved to a
QlikView database.
NO

MicroStrategys unified platform and

object-oriented development method
ensure that a change is propagated to all
related objects, ensuring one version of
the truth with minimal IT maintenance
effort.

QlikView does not provide automated

regression testing tools to detect report
and data discrepancies.

NO

MicroStrategy customers can instantly

leverage multiple types of data assets
without moving data to an enterprise
data warehouse.

Administrators have limited ability to

automate server-related administrative
tasks.

NO

IT staff have to maintain only one

business metadata object in one
place, and this one definition is reused
across the entire platform to reduce IT
maintenance efforts.
YES

 Change journaling is not provided outof-the-box, and developers must typically

rely on third-party revision control
or change journaling systems for this
capability.

NO

MicroStrategy administrators can uncover

inconsistencies or errors before business
users see them while reducing 98% of
manual regression testing efforts.
YES

Reports to analyze the collected statistics

are not provided out-of-the-box.

NO

Reduces repetitive and time consuming

administrative tasks through automated
command line scripts.
YES

The QlikView Management Console

(QMC) provides limited centralized
management of the QlikView
deployment. Security has to be defined
locally within each document by
modifying the QlikView script.
LIMITED

Prebuilt system performance dashboards

allow the administrator to immediately
analyze system usage data down to the
details and to easily optimize resources.

YES

QlikView does not support all styles of BI

through its server.
LIMITED

Administrators need to create users and

security settings once and these settings
apply to the entire MicroStrategy platform
without requiring duplicate IT efforts.

Automatically logs object change history

without requiring IT staff efforts, easing
auditing process.
Automated Scripting
Control

MicroStrategy Data Import functionality

QlikView does not provide Web-based
is for business users and provides the
data import functionality for business
ability to easily import data from local
users.
files or relational databases and quickly
converts them into dashboards or
visualizations without any IT involvement.

A centralized server dramatically reduces

administrative effort and complexity.
Single Point of
Administration

QLIKVIEW 11

There is no object or metadata reusability

between documents. One change to
a common business definition would
require making changes to each QlikView
document one by one, a mistake-prone
and onerous process.

2. All User Needs through a Single Platform

The ideal architecture for business intelligence is the one that provides organizations with a single and cohesive
model of the business that can be automatically displayed through any user interface. MicroStrategy users have
the option to access a single version of the truth through interactive Web, Microsoft Office, and mobile device
interfaces. MicroStrategy 9 includes a newly re-engineered Web user interface that is designed to be faster, more
powerful, and more personalized than ever before. The MicroStrategy 9 Web architecture boasts a wide range of
performance-enhancing changes that make the user interface interactive and instantly responsive to user requests.

Five Styles of Business Intelligence Through a Single Platform

Scorecards&
Dashboards

Enterprise
Repor4ng

Opera4onalDashboards
DynamicScorecards
MetricsManagement

PageperfectOpera4onalRepor4ng
PixelperfectBusinessRepor4ng
PrintperfectStatements&Invoices

OLAPAnalysis&
VisualExplora4on

VisualExplora4on
Slice&DiceInves4ga4veAnalysis
RootCauseDetermina4on

DataMining&
Predic4veAnalysis

AdHocAnalysis
Predic4veAnalysis
DataMining

MobileApps&
Aler4ng

MobileApplica4ons
MassiveInforma4onDistribu4on
iPad,iPhone,BlackBerry,email
Excep4onbasedAlerts

Figure 3: Users Can Seamlessly Traverse All Styles of BI from a Unified Platform and a Single Interface

MicroStrategys long history and devotion to producing world-class business intelligence technology provided
us with extreme confidence that we are making the right decision for our casino partners. MicroStrategys
interactive dashboards with advanced data visualizations will allow our clients to view complex data in
an easily understood and graphically appealing manner to improve decision-making. In addition, we look
forward to implementing MicroStrategys Mobile BI on the BlackBerry, iPhone, and iPad, which will give

our customers far greater flexibility in business intelligence than is currently available today.
Aristocrat Technologies.

11

President,

KEY BI REQUIREMENTS

MICROSTRATEGY 9

QLIKVIEW 11

Dynamic Enterprise Dashboards

YES

Dashboards integrated with

industrial-strength BI platform

Dashboards are created using reports

and objects from MicroStrategys single
metadata. Intelligence Server provides its
sophisticated processing, security, caching,
and analytical capabilities.

QlikViews pixel-perfect WYSIWYG

dashboard design interface requires either
a desktop client. Dashboard design is not
possible in a zero-footprint Web client.
This limitation makes it difficult to provide
self-service dashboard creation capabilities
to a large user population.

Fast WYSIWYG Pixel Perfect

design
Single design environment
Automatically drill anywhere in any
data source from the dashboard
Native parallel Flash and DHTML
visualizations
Multiple layers of analysis
Multi-layout dashboards
Automatic multi-panel filtering
Dashboard templates reduce design
time
Dashboard output caching in
HTML, PDF, Excel, and Flash for
instantaneous response
Actionable dashboards

LIMITED

Users design dashboards from

MicroStrategys single Web interface
using already familiar design paradigm.
Dashboards are created in a Pixel Perfect,
zero-footprint Web interface, WYSIWYG
and freeform layout.
MicroStrategy dashboards provide high
interactivity via selector controls that allow
users to dynamically apply filters to all
dashboard components and to synchronize
data across multiple analytical layers of
information. Users can automatically drill
throughout the full depth and breadth
of the data warehouse to obtain more
detailed information or view related
information.
MicroStrategy dashboards provide multipanel and multi-tab layers for various views
of data. Multiple dashboards can also be
assembled into a single dashboard book.
MicroStrategy 9 dashboard templates
provide reusable starting points with
sophisticated formatting that can make
any business user a dashboard designer.
Pre-calculated dashboards are cached for
instant viewing in HTML, PDF, Excel, and
Flash.
MicroStrategy provides the ability to
implement, and embed transactional
capabilities into the dashboards. Using
MicroStrategy Dashboards, business users
can not only monitor key business metrics,
but also initiate appropriate actions from
within the dashboard.

12

QlikView does not provide layout

templates out-of-the-box. With little
guidance in dashboard design, business
users have a difficult time building
effective dashboards.
QlikView dashboards can be distributed
as stand-alone files. However, the file is
in a proprietary format, and viewing a
dashboard offline requires a QlikView
desktop client. Dashboards cannot be
exported to Flash.
QlikView does not provide the ability to
implement, and embed transactional
capabilities into the dashboards.

KEY BI REQUIREMENTS
Rapid Comprehension of Data
Through Advanced Visualizations
Out-of-the-box library of advanced
visualizations
Automatic drilling from
visualizations
Easy to create and deploy
customized widgets
Flexible properties support different
types of data comparisons
Extensible library of visualizations
and widgets created by 3rd parties
Customizable advanced
visualizations and widgets

MICROSTRATEGY 9
YES

QLIKVIEW 11
LIMITED

MicroStrategy 9 provides an out-of-thebox library of advanced visualizations and

widgets that enhance the understanding
of complex data and highlight patterns
and trends.
MicroStrategy provides a library of
advanced visualizations, including Bullet
Graphs, Micro Charts, Interactive Heat
Maps, Interactive Bubble Charts, Grid
of Graphs, Bubbles Grid, RSS, Fish Eye,
Media, Cloud, Time Slider, and Stack Area
Charts. All visualizations have drilling
capabilities and enable users to select data
elements that filter out other areas of the
dashboard. Each MicroStrategy widget
has flexible capabilities and properties
that enable users to immediately identify
or further investigate trends or anomalies
in the data. For example, the Heat Map
widget incorporates OLAP technology
that enables users to filter data based on
numeric values.
MicroStrategy customers can extend
the advanced visualizations library
by importing 3rd party visualizations.
Advanced dashboard designers can edit
or create their own visualizations or
widgets. The widgets are built using the
power of Adobe Flash and are part of
MicroStrategys single platform.

13

QlikView provides basic visualizations

such as bar, line, pie, radar, and gauge
charts. Many advanced visualizations are
not available out-of-the-box, including
data clouds, weighted lists viewer, graph
matrix, calendar widgets, store layout,
etc. Bullet graphs are also not supported
natively, although they can be built by
overlaying multiple graphs in order to
give the appearance of a bullet graph,
making them time consuming to build and
maintain.
QlikView also cannot embed Web-related
content, such as HTML containers, media,
and RSS feeds, without coding. Advanced
interactive selectors such as fish eye
selectors are also not available out-ofthe-box.
Metric calculations, or chart expressions,
are defined within each chart. Because
metric definitions defined in one chart
cannot be easily reused across charts,
report developers are forced to spend
time redundantly defining metrics and
maintaining the consistency of metric
definitions.
QlikView extension objects allow designers
to create custom visualization components
for use within QlikView. However QlikView
extension objects are not suitable for large
data volumes (10 thousand records or
more). Also, extensions are not visible in
reports and can only be used in QlikView
documents.

KEY BI REQUIREMENTS

MICROSTRATEGY 9

Robust Enterprise Reporting

YES

Pixel Perfect absolute positioning

MicroStrategy offers comprehensive

report styles for banded reports. These
documents are highly interactive, providing
in-place OLAP analysis through pivoting,
drilling, and Excel-like formatting toolbars.

OLAP-enabled grids and graphs

Horizontal and vertical display of
data
Desktop publishing formatting
Advanced Export to Excel, Word,
PowerPoint, or PDF
High quality printing
Templates for rapid design

QLIKVIEW 11
NO

Highly formatted documents are built

using common desktop publishing
paradigms such as rulers and Pixel Perfect
positioning, all in a zero-footprint Web.
MicroStrategys export to PDF capabilities
support advanced PDF features such as
table of contents and watermarks. Export
to Excel supports export of multiple
document layouts to multiple Excel
worksheets.
Print-perfect reports can be printed
exactly as seen to any network printer.
MicroStrategy documents can be printed
horizontally or vertically. Users can
dynamically change the page layout, apply
fit-to-page functionality, and customize
headers and footers for any report.

QlikView has limited production reporting

capabilities. QlikViews report writer is
limited in the breadth of formatting
capabilities provided to report designers.
Reports can be banded so that a different
page is generated for each different
attribute element value, but QlikView
restricts reports to be banded by only one
attribute.
The report output is meant to be printed
or output to PDF, and not to be viewed
in the desktop or Web client. Accordingly,
the documents generated by the QlikView
report writer are not interactive, with no
filtering or drilling possible.
Production reports must be designed in
a desktop client or ActiveX client, and
cannot be designed over a zero-footprint
Web interface.

MicroStrategy provides out-of-the-box

templates and the ability to create custom
templates in order to decrease design time.
These templates can be saved and shared
across multiple projects.
Information Delivery and
Proactive Notification
A
 bility to self-subscribe and
subscribe others to report deliveries
Alerting and thresholds
W
 ide range of output types: Web,
e-mail, print, fax, wireless, and file
server
Report bursting
P ortal integration, with support for
portal servers including: Microsoft
SharePoint, SAP NetWeaver Portal,
Oracle WebLogic, and WebSphere

YES

LIMITED

Users can subscribe themselves and

other users to personalized reports and
alerts. Report deliveries can be triggered
by dynamic events, exception thresholds,
or time schedules. Personalized content
can be delivered via portal, print, email,
wireless, or file servers.
MicroStrategys platform leverages highly
scalable technology that slices a single
report and dynamically bursts personalized
information to the right users. Reusing
a single report across hundreds of users
saves processing resources.
Portal integration is available out-of-thebox, with support for portal servers such
as Microsoft SharePoint, SAP NetWeaver
Portal, Oracle WebLogic, and WebSphere.
Portlet-to-portlet communication is also
available out-of-the-box, making it easier
to inject BI into a portal.

14

Business users typically cannot self

subscribe to reports for delivery nor
configure personal exception thresholds.
Instead, an administrator would typically
set up a recipient list to send reports on
a periodic basis. Alternatively, a report
developer can configure a QlikView
document to display text in a pop-up
window or send text as an email when
certain threshold conditions are met.
QlikView does not provide portal
integration out-of-the-box, forcing
developers to write a lot of code to
present reports in portlets and to
incorporate communication between
QlikView and other portlets.

KEY BI REQUIREMENTS
Flexible and Powerful OLAP
Interactivity
Drill anywhere fosters investigative
analysis
Derived elements and derived
metrics for on-the-fly calculations
and groupings
View filters for quick data filtering
On the fly creation of derived
elements, custom groups, subtotals,
etc.
Built-in financial and statistical
functions

MICROSTRATEGY 9

QLIKVIEW 11

The MicroStrategy BI platform provides an

extensive set of data manipulation options
to allow the user to delve deeply into a
report to identify and discover important
trends and patterns in the data. Users can
drill anywhere in the entire data warehouse
for boundary-free investigative analysis.

QlikView is generally limited in the breadth

of options it provides for end users to
manipulate and analyze data. Data
interactivity on charts is generally limited
to filtering. Drilling is not automatically
enabled on charts. Instead, the report
developer must generally pre-define drilling
sequences on each chart. The result is that
drilling workflows are typically prescribed
by the report developer, and the end users
ability to analyze data is bounded.

YES

LIMITED

New derived metrics, derived attribute

element groups, filters, and subtotals
can be created on-the-fly using existing
metrics and attributes in the report. This
functionality makes it possible for users
to perform new calculations, custom
groupings, and filtering directly on the
report at the speed of thought.
MicroStrategys analytical engine provides
hundreds of built-in financial, statistical,
and mathematical functions.

QlikView users are also limited in their

ability to create new custom groups of
attribute elements directly on a chart. Other
data manipulations, such as new metric
calculations and custom subtotals, require
a power user to edit a chart definition in
a wizard; such data manipulations are not
available in one click.
QlikView does not provide the breadth of
OLAP, financial, and statistical functions
that are provided out-of-the-box by
MicroStrategy.

Seamless Microsoft Office

Integration
All Office products supported (Excel,
PowerPoint, Word, Outlook)
Leverage all BI reports and reporting
objects
Full new report creation
Ability to save logic created in Excel
back to enterprise metadata
Persistent and interchangeable
formatting across Office and Web
Server based configuration for
client settings, user, host, and IP
address settings

YES

LIMITED

MicroStrategy delivers the complete

reporting and analysis environment to
Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and
Outlook users. MicroStrategy Office
applications are linked to MicroStrategy
security and administration, ensuring
100% data consistency across the
enterprise. Users are able to access existing
reports or create new ones from within
Microsoft Office applications. Changes
made through Microsoft Office are
immediately reflected across MicroStrategy
Office and Web interfaces and can
be saved to the enterprise business
logic metadata layer. Microsoft Office
formatting changes are preserved after
automatic data updates.

QlikView reports and documents cannot

be created from within Microsoft Office
products. The QlikView Microsoft Office
integration is limited to exporting
individual sheet objects to Excel.
QlikView users can drag-and-drop charts
from the desktop QlikView client into a
Microsoft Office document. However, this
feature is not supported out-of-the-box
and requires installation of an ActiveX
control and IE plug-in. End users will
require installations of these controls for
viewing a QlikView-embedded Microsoft
Office document. This requirement makes
it difficult to widely distribute QlikView
embedded Microsoft Office documents.

The Web administrator can set client side

settings and security. Users can change
their passwords through the familiar
Microsoft Office interface.

3. self-service through a fast and intuitive Web Interface

MicroStrategy 9 provides capabilities for business personnel to create their own ad hoc report designs easily from
their Web browser. Using drag-and-drop actions through the MicroStrategy 9 Web interface, any business person
can assemble virtually any report by adding attributes and metrics to a simple report template without the need
to know any technical details about the data or the underlying databases. With MicroStrategy 9, business users
also have the ability to interactively build analysis with dozens of visualization options. To enhance usability, the
MicroStrategy 9 Web user interface adopts many familiar Microsoft paradigms, including ribbon toolbars, accordion
controls, control-click multi-select capability, and context-sensitive right-click actions.

15

MicroStrategy Provides End Users with a Fast and Intuitive User Experience

Add/Remove
Add/Remove
Attributes
A*ributes
Metrics
Metrics

Many
Views
EasilyFilter
Easily filter
data
data

DropZonesfor
Drop Zones for
multidimensional
mulCdimensional
analysis
analysis

Visually
analyze data or
VisuallyAnalyzeDataor
use
OLAP enabled grids
useOLAPenabledGrids

Figure 4: Design and Format a MicroStrategy Report Using a Fast and Intuitive User Interface

MicroStrategys next-generation of advanced self-service functionality is designed to provide more control to business
users. Business users can easily import their personal or corporate data directly from the MicroStrategy Web interface
and quickly convert the raw data into insightful visual analyses, reports, or dashboards. The MicroStrategy Visual
Insight interface provides incredible speed-of-interactivity, stunning visualizations, drag-and-drop manipulations, and
instant results thus allowing business users to rapidly go from data to decisions.

We were impressed with MicroStrategys self-service architecture, ease-of-use, highly visual dashboards,
and mobile reporting that allows us to put the analytics and reporting in the hands of the business user.
MicroStrategys history in the business intelligence sphere also gave us confidence that we had chosen the

right technology partner.

IT Specialist at Silverstar Casinos

16

KEY BI REQUIREMENTS

MICROSTRATEGY 9

User-Friendly Interface

YES

Drag-and-drop actions

The MicroStrategy Web interface

leverages many familiar, user-friendly
paradigms, including folder-tree
navigation, ribbon toolbars, accordion
controls, control-click multi-select
capabilities, and context-sensitive rightclick actions.

One-click access
Familiar Microsoft paradigms
Tree view navigation
Ribbon toolbars and menus
Accordion controls
Personalized interface
User collaboration capabilities
Context-sensitive online help
Sophisticated formatting for final
report presentation

LIMITED

MicroStrategy 9 enables collaboration via

comments that can be added to reports
to provide instructions to other users and
to share information. Every report can
maintain and display a set of notes with
details on who left the note and when.
MicroStrategy provides users
comprehensive, context-sensitive help
throughout the interface.
MicroStrategy Web allows users to format
reports and save custom format styles.
These include row-level headers, row-level
values, column-level headers, columnlevel values, metric headers, metric values,
subtotal headers, subtotal values, custom
groups, consolidation, and reports.

Self-Service Web Interface

YES

F ully interactive interface with

controls for data formatting,
manipulation, and analysis

MicroStrategy puts wide-ranging control

in the hands of business users, minimizing
the need for IT personnel to perform the
same functions. Business users are able to
rapidly create, manipulate, format, and
analyze any report themselves, all through
a single Web interface. Report objects
such as prompts, filters, derived metrics,
thresholds, and totals can also be created
over the Web. Individual columns and
rows on a grid can be selected quickly
and users can easily format, drill, pivot,
and perform other tasks on-the-fly.

R
 eal-time changes without a
publishing process
C
 reation of report objects, such as
prompts and filters, over the Web
W
 hat You See Is What You Get
(WYSIWYG) design and editing of
any report type over the Web
Z ero-footprint Web interface from
any browser

QLIKVIEW 11

QlikViews design interface allows for drag

and-drop placement of charts and other
dashboard elements. However, the editing
of each chart involves navigating through
a wizard to select data columns and define
metric calculations. Attributes and metrics
cannot be dragged-and-dropped onto a
grid or graph to modify charts and perform
ad hoc analysis on-the-fly.
QlikView has limited capabilities for logging
notes and comments from multiple users.
A QlikView application can have a text
input field where users can append notes.
However, QlikView is limited in its ability to
automatically add details on the author and
entry date of notes. QlikView is also limited
in its ability to secure comment fields so
that different users have different privileges
to read, edit, and append notes.

LIMITED

Changes are available right away without

any need to publish or export information
to other environments.
Business users create highly formatted
reports using any metadata object using
a zero-footprint, WYSIWYG design
paradigm that drastically shortens report
development time.
MicroStrategy Web is zero-footprint, and
does not rely on Java or ActiveX. As a
result, report designers and business
users can use any browser to design and
interact with reports.

17

Creating QlikView documents or

dashboards requires a desktop client; it is
not possible to create new documents from
a Web-based client. As a result, QlikView
deployments typically give ad hoc report
creation capabilities to a few power users,
while end users with Web access are
limited to filtering, sorting, and pre-defined
drilling.
In order to make a QlikView dashboard
available over the Web in a zero-footprint
client or QlikX IE client, the dashboard is
first designed on the desktop, and then
a Web page must be generated from
that design. Depending on formatting
requirements, the generated Web page
must then be further customized via HTML
code before being published to a Web
server. Any changes to the dashboard
design must go through a similar
publishing process in order to make the
changes available to Web users. This makes
Web deployments difficult to maintain.
Drilling within a chart is limited to
predefined drill paths. If the user wants
to see a different view of the data not
available in the pre-defined drill path, the
user must essentially recreate the chart by
opening the chart wizard and selecting a
different set of table columns to place in
the chart.

KEY BI REQUIREMENTS
Advanced Self-Service
Functionality
Data Import
Visual Insight

MICROSTRATEGY 9
YES

NO

The Data Import and Visual Insight

functionality is designed to give more
control to business users. Business users
can convert raw data into decisions in
minutes and without assistance from the
IT department.
Using Data Import functionality, business
users can easily import personal or
corporate data from local files, Excel
files, or relational databases through
the MicroStrategy Web interface. The
imported data can be easily converted
into interactive reports or dashboards
without any IT assistance.
MicroStrategy Visual Insight allows
business users to visually identify patterns,
trends, and anomalies in data. Business
users can intuitively query, visualize, filter,
and drill into their data. A drag-and-drop,
WYSIWYG interface enables business
users to visualize the changes as they
are made. MicroStrategy Visual Insight
provides incredible speed-of-interactivity,
detailed visualizations, and instant query
results, thus allowing business users to
rapidly go from data to decisions.

Instant Response to User Actions

YES

Extreme AJAX Web interface

The MicroStrategy Web architecture

adheres to an Extreme AJAX model,
shifting processing from the Web server
to the Web browser for any browser
type. By spreading the processing
workload, the user is given a much
more responsive and interactive Web
experience while still preserving a true
zero-footprint Web interface.

High degree of client-side

processing while maintaining a
zero-footprint Web client

QLIKVIEW 11

QlikView does not provide advanced

self-service capabilities. Importing personal
or corporate data is not supported from
the Web interface. In addition, existing
QlikView scripts cannot be accessed from
the Web interface, and end users cannot
save changes to the QlikView documents
(except shared objects) from the Web
interface. As a result, the self-service of end
users is severely constrained.
QlikView does not provide an interface
or visualizations specifically designed
for performing visual analysis of data. In
addition, performing actions like adding
new metric calculations or custom
subtotals require a power user to edit a
chart definition in a wizard, making the
process of data exploration tedious and less
intuitive.

LIMITED

18

Users who need a highly responsive

interface with a high degree of client-side
processing would typically use QlikViews
desktop client or the ActiveX plug-in for
Microsoft Internet Explorer. A desktop
client is difficult to deploy to a large
user population, and an ActiveX plug-in
cannot be deployed to users who use
browsers other than Internet Explorer. A
zero-footprint AJAX interface is available,
but this interface typically requires custom
HTML coding to fully format the interface,
and the architecture does not follow an
Extreme AJAX model. Consequently, a
highly responsive QlikView interface is
difficult to deploy to a wide audience.

KEY BI REQUIREMENTS

MICROSTRATEGY 9

QLIKVIEW 11

Dynamic Report Personalization

YES

Comprehensive parameter and

question prompting (column, filter,
search based, value, hierarchical)

In MicroStrategy, a single report can span

hundreds of possible data combinations
tailored to different user needs.

Personal answers saved for reuse

across different reports

MicroStrategy prompts provide report

input parameters that control most
aspects of a report, and give the user
significant ad hoc reporting capabilities.
Prompts enable the personalization of
reports from a single report definition,
reducing the number of objects stored in
the metadata repository.

QlikView does not natively support

prompting. QlikView developers can only
simulate basic element list prompting using
list boxes.

Security profiles personalize report

content for individual users

LIMITED

Advanced report parameters, like object

(column) and hierarchy prompts, allow
users to select the business attributes and
KPIs to include in the report at run-time.
MicroStrategy Web displays prompt values
and report contents that are permitted
by the user's security profile. For example,
when running a prompted report,
dashboard, or document, the user can
only select prompt answers that he has
permission to see. In a similar way, when
running a report, only the metrics and
attributes that the user has permission to
see will be displayed to the user.

QlikView users cannot be prompted to

select hierarchies, columns, filters, and
metrics during run-time to generate a
report that shows only the data that is of
interest to them.
QlikViews lack of prompting abilities
results in developing, deploying, and
maintaining more applications as compared
to MicroStrategy. With MicroStrategy, a
single highly prompted report can satisfy
the analysis requirements for thousands of
users across multiple departments.
Security profiles, including row-level and
column-level security, can be defined so
that different users opening the same
document can only see data they are
permitted to see. However, security is
defined locally within each QlikView
document. For a sizable BI deployment
security maintenance in QlikView can be
very tedious, time consuming, and difficult
to maintain.

4. High Performance at Any Scale

MicroStrategy technology has long been the performance leader at high user counts and data scale. MicroStrategy
9 continues and extends that leadership with adaptive caching technology called In-memory ROLAP and SQL
generation optimizations that can deliver the highest query performance, even when accessing hundreds of
terabytes of data. In-memory ROLAP takes advantage of the huge addressable memory space now available on 64bit computers to provide high performance middle-tier databases that can respond directly to data requests from
reports, dashboards, and OLAP analyses.

We look forward to using MicroStrategy 9 In-memory ROLAP technology to help us improve our user

experience with faster response times and to take unnecessary pressure off our Teradata system.
Manager of BI Architecture, eBay

19

In-memory BI Fills a Void in the Performance Curve of a BI System

BEFORE IN-MEMORY BI
Database
Query

AFTER IN-MEMORY BI
Database
Query

Slower
Response Time

In-memory
Query

Output
Caching

Report
Caching

Data Set
Caching

Faster
Response Time

Output
Caching

Report
Caching

Data Set
Caching

In-memory

On-Disk

In-memory

Caching

Query

Caching

On-Disk
Query

Figure 5: MicroStrategy In-Memory BI Provides the Combination of Fast Response Time from Multidimensional Caching and the Flexibility of
Ad Hoc Query BI

ROLAP is unique among BI architectures in that it can model whole relational databases as if they were a single
multi-dimensional cube. In this case, the cube is virtual since relational databases often contain terabytes of data
that could not fit within any physical cube technology. MicroStrategys virtual cube provides MicroStrategy users
with the ability to perform OLAP interactions with the data and drill freely throughout the vast virtual cube without
the severe size limitations of MOLAP architectures.

MicroStrategys new In-memory ROLAP option is game changing. Unlike other in-memory approaches on
the market today, it is fully integrated with an enterprise BI environment and provides high performance
transparently to business users. The way in which large amounts of data are stored and accessed in-memory
is so seamless that I was skeptical until I saw the actual SQL generated and witnessed the performance.

Cindi Howson, Founder of BIScorecard

MicroStrategy 9 Multi-source ROLAP Allows Data Environments to be Optimized for Performance and Cost
Supporting Hub and Spoke Data Architectures

Balance the Workload Across Databases

MicroStrategy Virtual Cube

MicroStrategy Virtual Cube

Sybase
IQ

MySQL

Netezza

Marketing
Data Mart

Mfg
Data Mart

SQL
Server

SQL
Server

DB2

Enterprise
Data Whse

Financial
Data Mart

Sales
Data Mart

Lookups, Aggregates,
Summary Data

Teradata

Enterprise Data Warehouse

Figure 6: MicroStrategy Multi-source ROLAP Helps Decrease Time to Value by incorporating Hub and Spoke Architectures and Decrease Cost
by Switching Database Processing from the Enterprise Data Warehouse to Alternative Lower Cost Databases.

20

Successful BI systems often experience dramatic growth in user populations. It is increasingly common for a single
MicroStrategy BI installation to support thousands and even tens of thousands of business users. The technical
challenge in these circumstances is to be able to efficiently accommodate thousands of concurrent user sessions
while providing high performance and easy administration. MicroStrategy 9 supports 64-bit Java Virtual Machines
(JVMs) in both J2EE Web servers as well as ASP.net Web Servers. The dramatically expanded memory available in 64bit JVMs supports many more concurrent user sessions, and allows users to display and interact with larger reports
and dashboards.

The most critical factor for our organization is the speed with which we can react to the needs of the
business. MicroStrategy enables our executives and other business users to run reports and analyses

within seconds, which in turn, allows our employees to make timely decisions that dramatically impact
the business. Also, our high performance BI environment encourages the use of BI across the company,

providing greater visibility into the business for more employees.

KEY BI REQUIREMENTS

MICROSTRATEGY 9

Quick Response Time

YES

In-memory ROLAP

MicroStrategys In-memory ROLAP

capabilities leverage 64-bit operating
systems to improve the overall
performance of the BI system. In-memory
ROLAP cubes improve the performance of
the most time-consuming and frequentlyused queries, while still allowing users
to seamlessly navigate the entire data
warehouse.

Dynamic sourcing
Dynamic multi-level caching

Chief Information Officer, FAMIQ

QLIKVIEW 11
LIMITED

When building a report, the report

developer never has to explicitly reference
an In-memory ROLAP cube. Dynamic
sourcing capabilities automatically direct
queries to In-memory ROLAP cubes
whenever possible. Administrators can
be assured that the In-memory ROLAP
cubes they create will automatically
and immediately improve overall query
performance.
MicroStrategy provides automatic caching
at multiple levels, including element
list, metadata object, report dataset,
XML definition, document output, and
database connection caching. Caching
makes the entire BI system efficient by
reducing redundant computations and
network traffic.

21

QlikView is an in-memory-only product

and holds its entire database in memory.
QlikView cannot offload portions of
its database to disk, so the entire
database must fit in memory. QlikViews
performance is thus limited by the amount
of data being analyzed and the memory
capacity of the mid-tier server or client.
QlikView does not allow dynamic sourcing
of data. All data must be queried from
QlikView cubes, resulting in increased
hardware costs and wasteful utilization of
database processing power.
QlikView caches recently calculated chart
aggregations in memory, but does not
persistently store these caches to disk.
Because the chart caches exist only in
memory, the caches typically do not exist
as long as a disk-persisted cache. As a
result, the same chart aggregations are
often calculated redundantly.

KEY BI REQUIREMENTS

MICROSTRATEGY 9

QLIKVIEW 11

High Performance ROLAP Engine

YES

Push-down joins

MicroStrategys ROLAP architecture uses

the database for much of its processing.
Data joins and analytic calculations are
processed in the database whenever
possible. MicroStrategys multi-pass
approach provides the flexibility to answer
analytical questions in an optimal manner.
Any technical advances in the database are
seamlessly accessible to the MicroStrategy
platform. By leveraging the database to
its fullest extent possible, large volumes
of transaction level data are processed
efficiently and network traffic is minimized.

QlikView relies on the client or mid-tier

server to perform all its processing and
does not provide a push-down architecture
where processing is shifted from the midtier server to the database. Data joins are
pre-processed when loading the data into
QlikViews proprietary in-memory database,
but analytic calculations and aggregations
are performed on-the-fly by the client or
mid-tier (i.e. QlikView server). This aspect
of QlikView architecture results in wasteful
utilization of the underlying databases
processing power and puts additional
pressure on QlikView server resulting in
more hardware costs and performance
bottlenecks.

Push-down analytics
Multi-pass SQL
Support for all implementations of
multi-pass SQL, including the use
of temp tables, derived tables, and
common table expressions
Minimize network traffic
Automatic aggregate awareness
Database-specific SQL generation
and optimization through VLDB
drivers
SQL query optimization algorithms

NO

Automatic and intelligent support for common

data warehouse optimization techniques
like aggregate tables and table partitioning
ensures that the MicroStrategy SQL engine
maximizes database usage for every analysis.
VLDB properties allow for further fine-tuning
of the SQL engine on both a global and
report-by-report basis. Through VLDB
drivers, MicroStrategy can optimize table
join sequences, databases parallel execution
capabilities, query optimization hints, and
other database-specific tuning parameters.
Global SQL query optimization algorithms
optimize complex queries to reduce the
number of SQL passes, providing further
performance improvement to queries.

Each year DB vendors spend millions of

dollars in R&D to improve their performance,
MicroStrategy benefits from these
improvements transparently because of
MicroStrategys push-down architecture;
QlikTech cannot leverage these investments
as the entire database is held in-memory.
Some recently calculated aggregations
are cached for use by multiple users, but
the caches exist only in memory and not
persisted to hard disk. These aspects of
QlikViews architecture limit its scalability, as
performance is bounded by the CPU and
memory capacity of the mid-tier server or
client.
QlikView has limited options to preaggregate data or partition data across
multiple servers. As a result, QlikView is
limited in its ability to optimize and tune the
performance of its database engine.

22

KEY BI REQUIREMENTS
Market Proven Enterprise
Scalability and Performance
Native 64-bit BI processing
64-bit Java Virtual Machines (JVMs)
support
Server Clustering for failover
recovery and load balancing
Customer references for large
user and data scale production
deployments

MICROSTRATEGY 9
YES

QLIKVIEW 11
LIMITED

The MicroStrategy platform is designed

for enterprise scalability. Native 64-bit
processing allows MicroStrategy to
support large numbers of users and data
volumes while improving performance.
MicroStrategy supports native 64-bit
processing for all major operating systems,
and across the entire BI platform.
MicroStrategy also fully supports 64-bit
Java Virtual Machines (JVMs) in both
J2EE Web servers as well as ASP.net Web
Servers. The expanded memory available
in 64-bit JVMs allows for optimal Web
performance across the enterprise. One
server can maintain more concurrent user
sessions and run much larger reports,
reducing overall hardware costs.
A cluster-capable server provides load
balancing and automatic failover
capabilities, so system resources are
allocated efficiently and system uptime is
maximized. MicroStrategy clustered servers
support asymmetric configurations, so
each cluster node can support different
applications. All cluster nodes share caches
and in-memory cubes and all changes
made to the metadata objects and security
settings take effect immediately.
MicroStrategy has many customer
references for deployments to thousands
of users who are reporting and analyzing
tens of terabytes of data.

23

RAM need by QlikTech is not only

affected by the amount of data, but also
by the number of users simultaneously
accessing the QlikView application. Each
QlikView user needs to have its own
User Session States; storing the User
Session States and aggregates takes up
RAM above and beyond the RAM used
to store the QlikView application. It
is not uncommon to have a QlikView
application that takes up nearly 100% of
the RAM for each additional user. Having
3-5 concurrent users accessing the same
QlikView application could easily double
the amount of RAM required, creating
serious scalability, performance, and user
concurrency issues.
QlikTech only supports the Windows
platform. By not offering UNIX versions,
QlikTech limits customers deployment
options.
QlikView is limited in the extent to which
resources can be optimally shared across
a cluster. For example, chart aggregations
that are calculated on one server are
cached only in the memory of that server,
and not shared across a cluster.
QlikTech does not have the long reference
list that MicroStrategy has of customers
that have proven the products data and
user scalability.

5. Quick to Implement and Deploy, Easy to Maintain and Administer

MicroStrategy 9 can deliver BI solutions quickly with little or no IT support. MicroStrategys unified BI architecture
offers many IT timesaving features including object reuse and optimized administration. MicroStrategy 9 allows
organizations to create a single shared business logic layer, the metadata, which presents a single cohesive model
of the business. Object reuse across the entire platform facilitates faster application development. Object reuse
across the entire platform also minimizes IT maintenance effort, since IT only needs to maintain one object instead
of several (or several hundred) object copies. Object reuse ensures a single version of the truth that persists across
all reports, dashboards, and analyses, regardless of who creates them.

MicroStrategy Allows Report Designers to Create Reusable Metadata Components

Range of Metadata
Elements Used in Reports

MicroStrategy

Other BI
Technologies

REPORT DESIGN
Layout
Format
Calculations

ReportSpecific
Components

REPORT COMPONENTS
Parameterization
Templates
Filters
Autostyles

BUSINESS ABSTRACTION
Metrics

Reusable
Metadata
Components

ReportSpecific
Components

Hierarchies
Custom Groupings
Transformations
DATA ABSTRACTION
Attributes
Facts
Tables

Reusable
Metadata
Components

Aliases

Figure 7: The More Comprehensive the Reusable Metadata, the More an Enterprise can Ensure Fast and Managed Development

MicroStrategy designed its architecture to minimize administration overhead through capabilities such as a single
administration point, reusable and automated cell level data security, and automatic internationalization features.
A central point of control across the entire platform reduces overhead. MicroStrategys universally-applied reusable
security system protects the privacy of the data and dynamically filters out data from any report based on the
security profile of each business user. MicroStrategy 9 offers the ability to automatically present every report,
dashboard, or OLAP analysis in the local language of each business user viewing the information without requiring
any additional design work by report authors. MicroStrategy capabilities, such as centralization and automation,
allow administrators to deliver secure BI to any user base, whether to a department or to thousands of users, with
minimal IT effort.

The new BI system has reduced the time we spend on monthly reporting by more than 50%. There is now

more time to spend on operations and innovation.

24

IT Specialist, Silverstar Casino

KEY BI REQUIREMENTS

MICROSTRATEGY 9

QLIKVIEW 11

Unified BI Architecture

YES

Single interface provides seamless

integration of analytics and reporting
for root cause analysis

MicroStrategys single code base offers

reusable business logic across the entire
platform. For example, MicroStrategys
dashboards can be made from
existing reports and objects, speeding
development and ensuring consistency
of report logic across reports and
dashboards.

QlikView is limited in its ability to provide

all five styles of BI. QlikView is limited in
its ability to generate the complete range
of enterprise reports (highly structured,
multi-page reports); to perform complex
OLAP analysis (including statistical, data
mining, and predictive analytics); and to
deliver sophisticated user-driven alerting.

MicroStrategys single BI server provides

efficient, centralized administration
for the IT administrator. A single server
with fewer moving parts and processes
translates into less downtime.

All metadata associated with a QlikView

objects, such as metric and filter
definitions, are contained within the
document and cannot be shared across
QlikView documents. The lack of a
common reusable semantic layer creates
a maintenance challenge; as metric
definitions change, report developers are
typically forced to manually synchronize
definitions across reports.

Single metadata reduces IT effort

Single Server
Single code base across platforms
Single, zero-footprint Web interface

LIMITED

QlikView has three different Web

clients to choose from. These clients
provide different levels of functionality.
The QlikView Zero-Footprint Client
(ZFC) supports only a subset of the
functionality supported by the QlikView
IE plug-in client.
Reusable and Rich Metadata Layer

YES

R
 obust abstraction layer where all
physical constructs can be modeled
logically and hidden from the business
user

MicroStrategys object-oriented
metadata defines an enterprises
business layer in a single repository.
Metadata objects can be nested as
building blocks to create more complex
objects. If a metadata object changes,
every other metadata object dependent
on it automatically changes. This ensures
consistency across business definitions
and minimizes the number of objects to
create and maintain.

Highly reusable metadata

Automatic change management
Object-oriented metadata

NO

MicroStrategy assembles all metadata

objects necessary for a report and
dynamically builds the report SQL at
run-time. Complex queries, such as set
qualifications, dimensional calculations,
and custom groupings, are created easily
without requiring manual SQL coding.

25

As each QlikView dashboard is a

standalone application, there is little
object or metadata reusability between
dashboards. This makes it difficult to
maintain one consistent business view
of the data. One change to a business
definition would involve making changes
to each QlikView application one by
one, a mistake-prone and onerous
process. The lack of object reusability
makes the BI environment more difficult
to maintain, and increases the risk of
having multiple versions of the truth.
QlikView lacks an object-oriented
metadata. Many calculations are typically
created anew for each new report and
cannot be used as building blocks to
build other report objects. This forces
report developers to spend more time
redundantly creating report objects.

KEY BI REQUIREMENTS

MICROSTRATEGY 9

Enterprise-Caliber Administration

YES

Single management console

MicroStrategys centralized
administration provides a single
console for real-time user and system
management. Administrators can view
and perform tasks on many system-wide
activities, including executing jobs, user
management, and scheduled services.

Self-tuning scalable server for

maximum performance
Impact analysis
Usage monitoring / auditing
Controlled environment for usage
analysis
Object management / migration
Change journaling
Automated regression testing
Optimization of In-Memory ROLAP
environment

QLIKVIEW 11
LIMITED

MicroStrategy Enterprise Manager

provides out-of-the box platform
monitoring with hundreds of KPIs and
corresponding dashboards to perform
impact analysis, auditing and tuning of
the BI application.
MicroStrategy Object Manager facilitates
metadata life cycle management,
metadata dependencies, and project
management.
MicroStrategys change journaling
system captures and logs all changes
to the metadata. Change tracking is
critical for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.
Persistent commenting allows distributed
development teams to communicate
with one another about their changes.
MicroStrategy Integrity Manager
automates the report comparison
process and verifies the consistency of
reports. This tool can detect, compare,
and present inconsistencies in reports
and data caused by changes in the BI
ecosystem. Discrepancies in data values,
SQL, and graph display are highlighted.
Cube Advisor recommends and
automatically creates an optimal set of
In-Memory Cubes to reduce database
processing and improve response times.

In order to be data scalable, simply being

able to store and process large volumes
of data is insufficient. Large data
volumes are typically associated with:
Complex Schema
Many tables and columns
Sophisticated analytical needs
Large number of users (which typically
translates to more reports to maintain)
QlikView is typically difficult to
administer under these conditions.
QlikView provides limited out-of-the-box
infrastructure to perform analysis on
server statistics. QlikView collects usage
statistics in a log file, not in a database
in a format that is easily analyzable.
QlikView also does not have out-ofthe-box reports to analyze the collected
statistics.
QlikViews capabilities to queue and
prioritize jobs are limited. As a result,
the administrator has little control to
prevent the mid-tier server from being
overtaxed or to properly prioritize
resource allocation. QlikView provides
system statistics to the administrator
for example, how many users are logged
in and how many jobs are running.
However, the administrator typically
does not have detailed visibility into
who is logged in and what jobs they are
running. QlikView also does not allow
the administrator to manually log out
users or kill jobs. In short, the QlikView
administrator can monitor the system,
but has little power to act.
QlikView does not natively provide
change management facilities.
Entire documents can be moved
from development to production
environments, but incremental updates
made in a development environment
cannot be easily merged into the
production environment.
QlikView does not provide change
journaling out-of-the-box, and
developers must typically rely on
third-party revision control or change
journaling systems for this capability.
QlikView does not provide automated
regression testing tools to detect report
and data discrepancies caused by
changes in the BI system.

26

KEY BI REQUIREMENTS
Industrial-Strength Multi-level
Security
One, reusable setup for platform-wide
cell level data security
Same report yields different views
of the information based on user
profiles
User profile determines appropriate
level of functionality
Truly zero-footprint Web interface. No
use or download of ActiveX and other
plug-ins
Automatic secure extranet ready with
128-bit encryption
Integrate with any security
infrastructure with single sign-on

MICROSTRATEGY 9
YES

QLIKVIEW 11
LIMITED

MicroStrategy provides centralized

security administration across the entire
platform. Reusable user profiles and
privileges automatically ensure users only
access the appropriate information and
functionality down to the data cell level.
MicroStrategy automatically provides
128-bit end-to-end encryption with a
zero-footprint Web client, making it a
secure platform behind the firewall.
MicroStrategy automatically integrates
with existing security authentication
infrastructure such as LDAP, NT,
Windows Active Directory, Tivoli, CA
SiteMinder, and database security.

QlikView security is generally managed

locally within each dashboard. Security
permissions are defined locally within
each QlikView document, instead of
being automatically applied across
all reports and dashboards across the
entire BI implementation. In order to
implement row level security for users,
QlikView designers have to modify the
QlikView script and assign appropriate
access privileges to the QlikView
document users. This makes security
management both tedious and errorprone, especially as the user population
grows.
QlikView typically requires administrators
to write code in order to integrate with
security authentication infrastructure
such as LDAP, NT, Windows Active
Directory, IBM Tivoli, SiteMinder, and
database security.
QlikViews zero-footprint Web client
provides less functionality than the
ActiveX and Java plug-in versions of
the QlikView Web client. A business
user who needs greater interactivity
will typically require an ActiveX control,
making it difficult to deploy widely
as some users may be restricted from
installing ActiveX controls.

Easy to Maintain Global

Deployments
N
 ative support for multilingual
deployments
C
 onfigurable translations for multiple
content categories, including the
interface, error messages, date/number
formatting, metadata objects, and
report data
Integrated interfaces and wizards to
input translations or import translation
strings
S upport for partially translated
metadata
F lexible support for multiple data
warehouse translation methods
Internationalization-aware data precalculations

YES

LIMITED

MicroStrategy offers the ability to

dynamically present every report,
dashboard, or OLAP analysis in the local
language of each business user viewing
the information.
Translation wizards and interfaces make
it easy for end users to input or import
translation strings into the metadata.
Translations can be performed
incrementally; fallback language settings
allow for partially translated metadata.
Multiple methods of data warehouse
translations are supported, including
translations at the column-level, rowlevel, table-level, and database-level. A
single In-memory ROLAP Cube supports
multiple languages so that resources are
used efficiently.

27

QlikViews out-of-the-box support

for multilingual deployments is
generally limited to presenting
the QlikView interface in various
languages. QlikView has limited native
support for multilingual metadata
and data. Translation capabilities
are not incorporated into the data
loading and modeling environment,
nor is it incorporated into the report
development environment.
QlikView does not provide interfaces
to simplify the process of inputting
or importing translation strings into
the metadata. In order to support
a multilingual deployment from a
single QlikView document, the report
developer must implement workarounds
that are time consuming to develop and
maintain.

KEY BI REQUIREMENTS
Easy to Customize and Migrate
Seamlessly
Single development environment for
entire platform
Easy to create and upgrade
customizations via Web Customization
editor
Eclipse Integrated Development
Environment(IDE) integration
Flex Builder support
Extensive API documentation

MICROSTRATEGY 9
YES

QLIKVIEW 11
LIMITED

The MicroStrategy SDK is a

comprehensive development
environment primarily used for
integrating MicroStrategy functionality
into other existing systems, especially
enterprise portals, and customizing
and extending the functionality of
MicroStrategy Web.
The MicroStrategy Web Customization
Editor integrates into the Eclipse
IDE. Developers can easily perform
MicroStrategy Web customization and
migration tasks by eliminating the need
to manually modify configuration files.

The QlikView zero-footprint Web

interface follows a publishing model
to deploy and customize reports. The
interface is designed in the desktop
client, and then the Web interface HTML
file is generated and placed on the
Web server. Customizations are then
applied to the generated Web page. If
the interface is redesigned or upgraded,
then a new HTML file must be generated,
and any interface customizations must
be reapplied. Because customizations
must be continually reapplied, Web
customizations are difficult to create and
upgrade.

MicroStrategy provides Flex Builder 3.0

support for creating powerful Internet
applications embedded with robust
business intelligence.
The MicroStrategy Developer Zone offers
developers access to documentation via
advanced search functionality such as
sorting results by relevance or by date,
wild card and exact phrase searching,
word highlighting, spelling suggestions,
and exclusion searches.
MicroStrategy provides developers
with an online collaborative community,
documentation, and customization
code samples.

6. HIGHLY INTERACTIVE AND flexible MOBILE INTELIGENCE

The use of the Internet on smartphones and other mobile devices has changed the way people communicate and
consume information, creating an exponential rise in the acceptance, adoption, and usage of data. With the ability
to access information at any time, in any location, on a hand-held device, consumers can now make more and
more decisions quickly and easily.

MicroStrategy offers a very robust and innovative mobile app development platform that can be used either
for creating purpose-built, workflow-driven mobile applications, or for directly displaying existing Reports and
Dashboards on mobile devices without the need of re-authoring.

28

MicroStrategy Mobile Apps:

Are faster and simpler to develop (no coding) Created by metadata driven, point-and-click paradigms

Are easier to maintain Changes to the centralized BI platform metadata are instantaneously

and fully utilizing MicroStrategys BI infrastructure, security, and reusable metadata components.
propagated to all user interfaces, including mobile devices. Changes are made once and only in one
place in the metadata, ensuring a single version of the truth and hassle-free maintenance.

Are enterprise grade Delivers the full benefits of MicroStrategys BI infrastructure: administration,
security, scalability, and performance.

Provide intuitive and powerful visualizations Fully leverages MicroStrategys vast library of advanced
visualizations.

Provide exceptional flexibility The MicroStrategy app platform provides exceptional flexibility to create
a wide range of mobile apps that go above and beyond the boundaries of traditional BI, without
writing a single line of code.

Most other BI companies are still trying to establish their mobile strategies and are primarily focused on providing
traditional BI through mobile devices. These companies do not offer an app development platform that is specifically
designed for building rich mobile applications, while fully leveraging the underlying BI platform infrastructure.

Information at Your Fingertips Using MicroStrategys Workflow-Driven Mobile BI

1:55 PM

iPad

100%

Card Home

Inventory Turns vs Profit Trend

Next Payment Due:

$ 1,699.53

Due Date:

April 15, 2010

Gross Profit (USD)

$ 6,798.11

Pay
Bill

$1,500,000

1,500

$1,250,000

1,250

$1,000,000

1,000

$750,000

750

$500,000

500

$250,000

See card details

$0

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Inventory Turns

Welcome Joyce L. Fowler

Summary as of April 1, 2010
Consolidated Balance:

250

2009 Q1

2009 Q2

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Inventory Turns

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Gross Profit

Large Charges
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Spend by expense category

Rewards Information

Special offers just for you

App-Centric

Enterprise Grade

Fast to App

Purpose-built, workflow-driven Apps that

quickly and easily guide users through their
data to discovery, analysis, or decision. Apps
fully leverage mobile device capabilities,
including the multi-touch interface, sensors
(GPS, camera, etc.), communications (voice,
email, text), and more.

Designed to deliver the higher levels of

performance and scalability demanded by
mobile Apps. MicroStrategy delivers in-memory,
multi-level caching, ROLAP analytics, robust
security, easy extensibility, and comprehensive
administration features designed for enterprise
deployments.

Fast, code-free app development via

MicroStrategys metadata-driven, point-andclick paradigm. Build rich, interactive BI apps
in just days. Speed deployment by building
once and deploying across platform to iPhone,
iPad, BlackBerry, browsers, Microsoft Office,
or portals.

Figure 8: MicroStrategy Mobile Intelligence Provides Exceptional Flexibility to Create a Wide Range of Mobile Apps.

We were wowed by MicroStrategys technology and the ability to build our application in one week
leveraging our existing infrastructure. Our clients are very excited about our new iPhone app and the

capabilities it provides to help them enhance efficiency and improve business performance. We see
tremendous potential for iPhone and iPad apps, which will enable our clients to access important

information whenever they need it.

CTO at Alloso Technologies

29

KEY BI REQUIREMENTS

MICROSTRATEGY 9

QLIKVIEW 11

Enterprise Grade Mobile Application

YES

Single version of the truth

MicroStrategy Mobile accesses the

same reports and dashboards used by
all other MicroStrategy user interfaces,
ensuring a single version of the truth.
Because reports and dashboards in
the BI application do not have to be
re-authored for mobile device, minimal
additional IT investment is required for
mobile deployment.

Scalability and user concurrency has

become even more critical with the
advent of Mobile BI. Users now have the
flexibility to access BI systems at anytime
and from anywhere. As a result, users
will ask more questions and the number
of queries submitted to the BI system will
increase exponentially.

Minimum development efforts

Minimum maintenance efforts
Superior performance and scalability
Minimum administration efforts

LIMITED

New reports for mobile devices are

created by a metadata driven, pointand-click paradigm fully utilizing
MicroStrategys BI infrastructure, security,
and reusable metadata components. As
a result, reports for mobile devices can
be created rapidly and easily, in a codefree environment.
MicroStrategys object-oriented
development paradigm results in reduced
maintenance. Changes to metadata are
instantaneously propagated to all user
interfaces. Changes are made once and
only in one location, ensuring hassle-free
maintenance.
MicroStrategy Mobile leverages the
MicroStrategy platforms superior
performance and scalability functionality
and provides rapid answers to tens
of thousands of users through their
mobile devices. Performance is further
enhanced by efficiently caching reports
and dashboards locally on the mobile
devices.
MicroStrategy's acclaimed administration
tools provide the administration
efficiencies needed to deploy mobile
applications to hundreds of thousands
of users, while providing the industry's
lowest total cost of ownership.

30

In order to deliver enterprise-caliber

mobile applications, the underlying BI
platform will require superior scalability
to handle the increased user requests
and higher user concurrency. QlikView
has inherent scalability and user
concurrency issues. Each QlikView user
needs to have its own User Session
States, storing the User Session
States and aggregates takes up RAM
above and beyond the RAM used to
store the QlikView application. It is
not uncommon to have a QlikView
application that takes up nearly 100% of
the RAM for each additional user. Having
3-5 concurrent users accessing the same
QlikView application could easily double
the amount of RAM required, creating
serious scalability, performance, and user
concurrency issues.
QlikView does not follow an objectoriented development paradigm and
does not have a reusable metadata
layer. The lack of object-oriented
development results in significantly
higher maintenance efforts; changes
to the QlikView deployment are not
automatically propagated and any
change to the common business
definition would require making changes
to each QlikView document one by
one, a mistake-prone and onerous
process. QlikViews limited breadth of
administration tools further increases
the administration and maintenance
workload.

KEY BI REQUIREMENTS

MICROSTRATEGY 9

QLIKVIEW 11

Security of Mobile BI

YES

Multi-level BI platform security

extended to mobile devices

MicroStrategy Mobile utilizes the

same sophisticated user authorization
management framework available in the
MicroStrategy BI platform. Authorization
refers to the three-dimensional process
by which the application determines:

Security has to be defined redundantly

for each QlikView document. QlikView
developers have to edit each QlikView
document and modify the load script
to enable row level security. This is a
tedious and time consuming process that
is difficult to maintain in a large scale
deployments.

Data protection on the mobile device

Data transmission security
Integration with enterprise-wide
security infrastructure (single sign-on)

LIMITED

Application functionality privileges

Object access permissions
Data access security
MicroStrategy provides a Web-based
mobile configuration interface that
enables administrative control of
password policies for the MicroStrategy BI
platform. It also allows administrators to
set a variety of local data caching options.
Administrators can specify maximum
cache size on the device, automatically
wipe all locally cached data every time
the app is closed, and set options for
automatically rebuilding new caches for
user subscriptions once the application is
re-loaded. This ensures security of data
that is stored locally on the device.
MicroStrategys BI platform provides
an option to encrypt communications
between its server components, such as
between the MicroStrategy Intelligence
Server and MicroStrategy Mobile Server,
using an AES 128-bit algorithm.

31

QlikView provides limited options for

local data caching on the mobile devices.
QlikView only provides the functionality
to extract user information from the
Directory Service; any authorization
needed against it has to be handled
separately.

KEY BI REQUIREMENTS
Highly Interactive and Intuitive User
Experience
Native mobile applications
Device-specific actions
o Multi-touch
o App integration
o Sensor based query
o Mobile Info capture
BI-specific features perfectly designed
to work with device specific capabilities
o Drill anywhere
o Swipe to page-by
o Integrated mapping
o Rich visualizations
o Alerts through push notifications
o Prompting
o Subscriptions
Offline analysis

MICROSTRATEGY 9

QLIKVIEW 11

MicroStrategy provides native apps for

mobile devices. The native apps are
designed to fully leverage mobile device
capabilities including the multi-touch
interface, sensors (GPS, camera, etc.),
communications (voice, email, text), and more.

QlikTech launched native applications

for iOS and Android devices first. The
user experience delivered by QlikTechs
native apps was very poor; as a result, it
failed to generate enthusiasm in the BI
space. Instead of improving their existing
native apps QlikTech changed its strategy
and introduced a new browser-based
interface that supports HTML5 capable
browsers.

YES

LIMITED

MicroStrategy Mobile apps provide a

vast range of BI-specific functionality
designed to leverage and work seamlessly
with device capabilities. BI functionality
includes integrated Google maps, out-ofthe-box drill-anywhere, a vast library of
advanced visualizations, and devicespecific actions to perform tasks such as
swiping (horizontally or vertically).
Users can page-by, set alerts for report
refresh or data changes through push
notifications, use intelligent prompting,
metric swapping, and much more.
With MicroStrategy Mobile, reports are
cached directly on the mobile devices
for fast, offline viewing. Reports are
fully interactive; data can be sliced and
sorted; and columns can be locked,
resized, and reordered for effective
comparisons of metrics.
Users can subscribe to reports directly
from their mobile devices and do
not have to wait for IT to create
subscriptions for them.

The QlikTech native applications support

only one object-at-a-time view of the
QlikView document. This restriction
results in creating an unintuitive user
interface with awkward navigation.
End users have to go back and forth to
make and clear selections. Users cannot
change the value of an attribute and see
its effect on the KPIs side- by-side. As
a result, users quickly get lost and lose
context of the data being analyzed.
The QlikTech browser-based mobile
interface tries to mimic the QlikView
desktop functionality on mobile devices.
QlikViews browser-based interface is
designed for larger screen devices like
the iPad, and its use is not practical for
small screen devices like the iPhone.
Users who wish to use QlikView on
smartphones will be forced to use the
QlikView native clients that provide a
terrible user experience.
The browser-based QlikView mobile
interface has many limitations and
cannot fully utilize powerful device
specific functionality to provide a rich
user experience that mobile users are
accustomed to, for example: Offline
analysis, Metric swapping, locationbased analytics, alerts through push
notifications, swipe to page-by, App
integration (e.g., Twitter, Facebook,
LinkedIn, email, phone, etc), Sensor
based query, mobile info capture, and
so on.

32

KEY BI REQUIREMENTS

MICROSTRATEGY 9

App Development Platform

YES

Flexibility to create any information

workflow

The MicroStrategy app platform provides

exceptional flexibility to create Mobile apps
that can be used to create a very wide
range of mobile applications that go above
and beyond the boundaries of traditional
BI without writing a single line of code.

Ability to deliver multiple forms of

information through the mobile app
Actionable mobile apps

QLIKVIEW 11
NO

MicroStrategy extends the boundaries of

the mobile BI App by delivering multiple
forms of information to users within the
same app. Unstructured information like
images, text, desktop publishing design,
web content (web pages, videos), and
more can also be included. In addition,
MicroStrategy Mobile also provides an
in-app PDF reader, email, browser, HTML
containers, and optimized ePub handling.

QlikView considers mobile as just

another user interface to deliver
traditional BI and does not provide
the capabilities to build and deploy
custom-built, work-flow driven mobile
applications that go beyond the
boundaries of viewing traditional BI
content on mobile devices.
QlikView does not provide the
capabilities to deliver multiple forms of
information through mobile devices.
QlikTech does not provide transactional
capabilities through mobile devices.

MicroStrategy provides the ability to

implement, and embed transactional
capabilities into the information driven
mobile apps. Using MicroStrategy Mobile,
business users can not only monitor key
business metrics, but also initiate appropriate actions from within the mobile apps.

7. Deep Insight through Superior Analytics

MicroStrategy 9 allows users to freely investigate data and surf through the data warehouse without having to
design a new report for each new combination of data that a user wants to see. Users can create analytic metrics
leveraging a wide range of data mining algorithms, statistical, predictive, and OLAP functions, as well as capabilities
for metric grouping on-the-fly. Users can import complex statistical models from specialized third party data mining
applications. MicroStrategys unified platform ensures that all these analytic capabilities are available on any type of
report in the entire BI environment.

World-class analytics are important and MicroStrategy is a cost efficient way to address our expanding BI

requirement.

Chief Executive Officer, eHarmony

33

MicroStrategy Delivers Comprehensive Analytics that are Easy to Consume

Web
Browser
Web
Browser
Web Browser
Apple
iPad
Apple
iPad
Apple
iPad
Trend
Analysis

iPad

1:55 PM

100%

Segmentation
Analysis
Statistical
Analysis

Figure 9: Advanced Analytics can be Easily Incorporated into and Consumed through Reports, Dashboards and Scorecards.

MicroStrategys ability to generate multi-pass SQL is a key element in providing analytically sophisticated business
intelligence applications. Multi-pass SQL is required to answer analytical questions that require several steps and
cannot be answered with a single SQL query block. MicroStrategy generates SQL that performs these multi-pass
queries as efficiently as possible for each particular database.

Iterative analysis is the dynamic mechanism that represents the continuous interaction and advanced analytical
techniques between the BI server and the database. MicroStrategy uses this approach when complex questions cannot
be answered using only the database. Not only does MicroStrategy automatically invoke iterative analysis when
required, it also dynamically decides the most optimal location to perform the calculations, based on its own strengths
and the database strengths, while minimizing data transfer.

MicroStrategys powerful analytics help us analyze sales performance across locations and model lines for
enhanced sales targeting and inventory management

America, Inc.

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Manager, IT Systems, Porsche Cars North

KEY BI REQUIREMENTS
Efficiently Answer Complex
Questions
Multi-pass SQL
Collaborative processing between
analytical engine and RDBMS-based
processing
Reusable analysis objects (e.g.,
custom groups, consolidations,
transformations, conditional
metrics, sets)
Support for complex definitions of
analysis objects (e.g., conditional
metrics with set conditions, custom
groups defined with a mix of metric
qualifications and attributes at
different levels, set analysis with
multi-attribute comparisons)
All analytical capabilities available
across all styles of BI

MICROSTRATEGY 9
YES

QLIKVIEW 11
LIMITED

MicroStrategys ability to generate multipass SQL allows MicroStrategy to answer

analytical questions that require several
steps and cannot be answered with a
single SQL query block.
MicroStrategy automatically uses
collaborative processing between the BI
server and the database when complex
questions cannot be answered using
only the database. MicroStrategy also
dynamically decides the most optimal
location to perform the calculations,
based on its own strengths and the
database strengths, while minimizing data
transfer.
The MicroStrategy metadata supports a
rich set of reusable analysis objects. In
addition to attributes, metrics, and filters,
complex objects such as custom groups
and transformations can be created and
reused in any report. The reusability of
these analysis objects allows business
users to answer sophisticated questions
without requiring IT coding and promotes
more efficient application development.
MicroStrategys analysis objects can be
defined with a high degree of complexity.
For example, a custom group can be
based on a mix of metric qualifications
and multiple attributes at different levels.
MicroStrategys analytical capabilities
are provided by the BI platform instead
of standalone capabilities in the frontend interface. As a result, all analytical
capabilities are available across all styles
of BI, and users can have any question
answered in any type of report.

35

QlikView performs all calculations in the

analytical engine on the mid-tier server or
the client. All data is held and processed
in memory by the QlikView engine, even if
complex and iterative calculations can be
processed more efficiently by the RDBMS.
QlikViews performance is limited by the
CPU and memory capacity of the mid-tier
server or client.
QlikView is also limited in its ability to
take advantage of the OLAP calculations
supported by relational databases that are
not provided out-of-the-box by QlikView.
QlikViews basic metadata does not support
complex objects such as conditional metrics,
custom groups, and transformations. As
a result, complex analysis is often not
possible, or requires developers to encode
and pre-calculate complex analytics within
the QlikView database load scripts.

KEY BI REQUIREMENTS

MICROSTRATEGY 9

QLIKVIEW 11

Sophisticated Predictive Analytics

YES

Single unified platform provides

data mining scoring capabilities

The MicroStrategy BI platform delivers

data mining and predictive analytics
to all users through a fully unified and
integrated enterprise-caliber BI system.
MicroStrategy Data Mining Services
enables organizations to maximize their
investment in data mining products by
importing their Predictive Model Markup
Language (PMML) and seamlessly
encapsulating the model as a predictive
metric for use with any report or
document.

QlikView provides some statistical functions.

QlikView also provides the ability to input
variable values, which can be combined
with mathematical functions to perform
basic what-if calculations. However,
many predictive analytic and data mining
algorithms are not provided out-of-thebox. QlikView is also limited in its ability
to import PMML models or otherwise
integrate with the predictive models
provided by third-party data mining
products.

Report designers and analysts can

view and build predictive reports using
MicroStrategy and then distribute these
reports to all relevant decision makers
and stakeholders. Business analysts can
perform further analysis slicing-anddicing data, creating ad hoc reports,
drilling, pivoting, and sorting on
predictive reports. All users continue
to inherit all the object reuse, security,
administrative, and manageability benefits
of the MicroStrategy BI platform.

QlikTech is not a member of the Data

Mining Group.

Open platform and cross-vendor

interoperability via PMML
Seamless integration of predictive
analytics with casual reporting
Support for popular predictive
analytic algorithms (e.g., Linear
Regression, Logistic Regression,
Tree-Regression, Clustering,
Decision Tree, Association Rules,
Time Series)
Support for complex algorithms
(e.g., Neural Network, Rule
Set, Support Vector Machine,
Ensembles of Models)
Member of the Data Mining Group,
a data mining standards-setting
organization

LIMITED

MicroStrategy data mining scoring

capabilities support cross-vendor
interoperability. MicroStrategy supports
PMML from SPSS, KXEN, SAS, Salford
Systems, Oracle, ANGOSS, FairIsaac,
StatSoft and R.
MicroStrategy is an active member of the
Data Mining Group, providing guidance
and leadership to set the PMML standards
for the data mining industry.

8. Flexible Technology for Departmental to Enterprise BI

Increasingly, departments want their own islands of departmental BI because they need the flexibility and speed
offered by smaller systems that are unencumbered by inter-departmental coordination, budgeting allocations,
and project prioritization. On the other hand, CFOs and CIOs want enterprise BI systems because they offer a
single version of the truth and the lowest cost of ownership. With MicroStrategy 9, companies can have both.
MicroStrategys flexible BI platform provides multi-source data access, rapid application development, and seamless
migration from departmental to enterprise BI.

36

MicroStrategy 9 Supports a Gradual and Incremental Migration from Islands of BI into a Consolidated
Enterprise BI System

Stage 1
Disparate Islands of BI

Stage 2
Merging Islands of BI

Stage 3
Consolidating Data

All Running on MicroStrategy BI

Using MicroStrategy Multi-source

Re-pointing Metadata to the EDW

Enterprise

Enterprise

HR

Sales

Enterprise

Enterprise DW

Enterprise DW

Fin

HR

Sales

Fin

Finance Dept

HR Dept

Sales Dept

Finance Dept

HR

Sales

HR Dept

Sales Dept

Enterprise DW

Fin

HR Dept

Sales Dept

Finance Dept

Figure 10: MicroStrategy Technology Provides a Seamless Migration Path from Departmental BI to Enterprise BI

Organizations need to gradually and incrementally consolidate their departmental and workgroup islands of

BI into a cohesive enterprise framework that ensures a single version of the truth and low cost of operation.

MicroStrategy is directly addressing this challenge with MicroStrategy 9, which contains an In-memory BI and
Multi-source BI capability that will make MicroStrategys enterprise-caliber technology equally suitable for
workgroup BI and departmental BI. MicroStrategys new platform includes capabilities that allow consolidation
and transformation of departmental and workgroup islands of BI without having to redo reports or dashboards

Chief Executive Officer and Executive Vice President Research,

as consolidation takes place.

Ventana Research

KEY BI REQUIREMENTS
Seamless Migration From
Departmental to Enterprise BI
Metadata compatibility enables
consolidation of islands of
information
Metadata abstraction layer enables
seamless re-pointing of the data
source without affecting the
business model
Advanced migration and
environment management tools

MICROSTRATEGY 9
YES

QLIKVIEW 11
LIMITED

MicroStrategys metadata compatibility

enables departments to incrementally
migrate their business logic into a
consolidated BI environment.
MicroStrategys metadata abstraction
layer allows companies to re-point the
metadata to automatically access new
data locations without disrupting reports
or requiring redesign.
MicroStrategy Object Manager can
automatically consolidate disparate
departmental BI applications while
reconciling all overlaps or conflicts that
may arise.

37

QlikView applications are standalone

documents in which all metadata is selfcontained. QlikView lacks an enterprise
metadata layer in which a semantic
layer, including data relationships and
reporting objects, is shared across QlikView
applications. As a result, QlikView
deployments are typically soloed and
departmental, with little flexibility to
consolidate the disconnected QlikView
applications into one enterprise-wide BI
application with a single version of the
truth.

KEY BI REQUIREMENTS
High Performing Multi-source
Data Access
Unified multi-dimensional business
model across multiple data sources
Optimized retrieval of multi-source
data
Smart Push-Down architecture
Automatic multi-source drill
anywhere
Support for distributed workload
database architectures
Direct access to multi-dimensional
data sources including SAP
BW InfoCubes and QueryCubes,
Hyperion Essbase, and Microsoft
Analysis Services.
Direct reporting from salesforce.com

Rapid Departmental BI
Application Development
No need for a data warehouse or
ETL tool
Graphical and intuitive design
interface to minimize IT effort
Automatic detection wizard for
creation of business logic and table
mappings
Pre-created templates for quick
project and dashboard development
Command line administrative tool
for high volume tasks
Comprehensive data model support

MICROSTRATEGY 9
YES

QLIKVIEW 11
YES

MicroStrategys unified multi-dimensional

business model allows companies to
create a single logical view spanning
multiple data sources, making it easy to
add new data sources. Users are able
to seamlessly drill across multiple data
sources.
MicroStrategy optimizes the retrieval of
data from heterogeneous data sources.
MicroStrategy dynamically selects the
most efficient data source to query. The
MicroStrategy SQL engine automatically
creates queries optimized for each data
source for fast performance without IT
tuning efforts.

QlikView can extract data from multiple

data sources into a single QlikView database.
Heterogeneous data is consolidated into
one QlikView database before a semantic
layer and reports are created. Reports can
inherently query and drill across multisource data, provided the data is stored in
one QlikView database.
QlikView does not push down query
processing to the data source, and performs
all calculations on the mid-tier instead. For a
given query, QlikViews architecture cannot
distribute processing workloads across
multiple data sources or across multiple
instances of the QlikView database.

MicroStrategys Smart Push-Down

architecture performs joins at the database
layer thereby minimizing network traffic
and leveraging the power of modern
database engines. MicroStrategy further
minimizes network traffic by moving the
least amount of data to the most optimal
database.
YES

LIMITED

MicroStrategy 9 provides easy access to

multiple data sources without requiring
a data warehouse. MicroStrategy can
instantiate In-memory ROLAP cubes by
pulling information from multiple sources,
obviating the need of an ETL tool or a
data warehouse.
MicroStrategys graphical design interface
makes it fast and easy to add new data
sources and define business logic. A set of
pre-created templates speed dashboard
development.
MicroStrategy automatically detects data
types from data sources and creates
the entire business logic layer, speeding
development.
MicroStrategy provides a scripting
interface that allows project developers to
schedule massive and repetitive tasks in a
matter of seconds.

38

In order for QlikView users to access

multisource data, all data must first be
loaded into a single QlikView database.
QlikView automatically links tables by
joining fields that have the same name.
QlikViews data load scripting interface
is largely text-based instead of graphical.
This makes it difficult for developers to
view and define data joins and business
logic, especially for moderately complex
data environments with many tables and
columns.
QlikView provides an Automation API
and a built-in VBScript interpreter that
allows developers to automate complex
or bulk application-related tasks. However,
administrators have limited ability to
automate server-related administrative
tasks.

KEY BI REQUIREMENTS
Centralized and De-Centralized
Administration
Web-based administration for
business managers
Allows distribution of administrative
tasks, including object promotion,
data integrity checking, and user
management
Update Packages allow distributed
development

MICROSTRATEGY 9
YES

QLIKVIEW 11

LIMITED

MicroStrategy 9 allows user and

application administration responsibilities
to be distributed to business people within
individual departments using a Web
interface. This offloads administrative
tasks from centralized IT personnel and
gives departments the ability to have their
own databases, their own BI applications,
and their own metadata within the
same infrastructure as the enterprise BI
environment.
MicroStrategy 9 Update Packages can
automatically consolidate disparate
development teams updates and changes.

QlikView has limited ability to provide

administrators with only subsets of
administrative tasks. As a result, it
is difficult to have an enterprise BI
environment with a centralized security
and development infrastructure, while
allowing for departmental administrators
with a limited scope of capabilities.
All metadata for a QlikView document
is stored in one file. QlikView does
not provide facilities to have multiple
developers simultaneously and
independently edit a QlikView document,
and then later merge all edits. Instead,
a QlikView document will typically be
modified by one developer at a time, and
a checkout system would be implemented
to prevent more than one developer from
modifying a QlikView document at the
same time. As a result, QlikView does not
easily support a distributed development
environment that is often needed for
moderately large applications.

III. MicroStrategy A Market Proven, Industrial-Strength Technology

MicroStrategy 9 is an advanced technology that allows companies to support all types of BI applications with one
technology. MicroStrategy 9 builds on MicroStrategys heritage of high-end BI and further extends the boundaries of
performance, scalability, and efficiency of enterprise BI. At the same time, MicroStrategy 9 brings that same enterprisecaliber BI technology easily within reach of smaller departmental BI initiatives. Just as importantly, MicroStrategy 9
provides a smooth migration path for islands of departmental BI to merge into a cohesive and consistent enterprisewide framework. With MicroStrategy 9, even as departmental BI applications are consolidated into the enterprise-wide
framework, the departments can continue to retain significant autonomy and nimbleness that they enjoyed previously.

Today, organizations need a business intelligence solution that can support user self-sufficiency and can

respond more quickly and effectively to local business needs. MicroStrategy 9 provides end users with more

control over the analysis and reports they create and helps them to be more self-sufficient, require far less
IT support, and quickly adapt to changing business requirements.
Research at The Data Warehousing Institute

Wayne Eckerson, Director of TDWI

Unlike BI suites offered by other vendors, MicroStrategy offers the only organically grown BI architecture. All of
the MicroStrategy 9 components were expressly built to work within a unified architecture and not as separate
standalone products or acquired technologies that were subsequently joined together. This caliber of BI technology
is now being sought after by companies, not solely for their most demanding BI applications, but for the purpose of
hosting all of their BI applications. Today, companies can standardize all BI into a single, highly-functional, efficient
architecture and reap significant economies of scale and enterprise-wide consistency.

39

COLL-1022 0812

MicroStrategy Incorporated 1850 Towers Crescent Plaza Tysons Corner, VA 22182 1.888.537.8135 www.microstrategy.com