Prism Solutions and MicroStrategy form data warehousing partnership

Business Wire, Dec 6, 1994

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 6, 1994--Prism Solutions Inc. and MicroStrategy Inc. Tuesday announced the signing of a joint marketing agreement under which they will provide customers an integrated solution for data warehousing and decision support.

Prism's data warehouse management software is used for building, refreshing and navigating data warehouses, while MicroStrategy's client/server decision support tools are used to develop mission-critical, enterprise-wide decision support systems (DSS) for accessing and analyzing the data stored in data warehouses.

Data warehouses provide the foundation for decision support applications and business reporting by integrating and transforming enterprise-wide data into a single, relational database of consistent, subject-oriented, historical information.

"Our partnership with MicroStrategy is designed to help customers get the maximum value from their data warehouse investment," said Jim Ashbrook, president of Prism Solutions Inc. "Now customers can capitalize on the cost benefits and time savings of using Prism's software to quickly extract, integrate and map legacy data and operational data to a target database, then use MicroStrategy's tools to query, analyze and report on that data in an effective manner."

Prism's products and services provide the foundation for building and maintaining a data warehouse, while improving access to and use of the data in the warehouse. Prism Warehouse Manager automatically generates code to extract operational data and external data from source databases, integrates the data from the various sources, and then transforms and loads the integrated data to a choice of target databases on mainframe and client/server platforms.

An extensive selection of built-in transformations allows users to perform the data conversions, summarizations, key changes, structural changes and condensations needed to create an historical perspective of enterprise-wide information for analysis and decision making.

"MicroStrategy and Prism's partnership provides a tested and proven foundation for those users looking to bridge the distance between the transactional data and the decision maker's desktop," said Michael J. Saylor, president and chief executive officer of MicroStrategy Inc. "The fact that both our companies espouse a meta data-driven and open systems-based data warehousing architecture enables us to form a strong technical bond, thereby giving our users a consistent platform for developing and deploying enterprise-wide applications."

MicroStrategy offers a decision support architecture that provides on-line analytical processing (OLAP) capabilities without requiring additional investment in proprietary multidimensional databases. MicroStrategy's DSS Agent allows companies to implement ad-hoc query and analysis, executive information systems (EIS), workflow automation, and mission-critical applications using an open systems methodology.

Built-in support for optimal query performance, complex filtering, multidimensional analysis, Desktop Agents, exception-scanning Alerts, drill-down and data surfing are provided via an innovative combination of a DSS engine and a meta data dictionary.

Taking advantage of symmetric multi-processing (SMP) and massively parallel processing (MPP) hardware and parallel query processing for scalability, DSS Agent enables data surfing in the multi-hundred gigabyte range.

Prism recently announced its next generation of data warehouse management software, the Prism Directory Manager product suite, which allows users to build, store and navigate an integrated information directory of the meta data, or information about data, in a data warehouse.

Similar to the card catalog at a library, Directory Manager assists users in finding relevant information for analysis by providing both business and technical views of what data is in the warehouse, where it came from, how it was transformed and how it has changed over time.

Customers can also create their own customized views of the meta data to support diverse groups of end users who need the ability to navigate the information in the data warehouse using their own terms. Prism is providing an export facility that MicroStrategy's DSS Agent can use to import the appropriate meta data from the Directory Manager.

Prism and MicroStrategy jointly support a variety of relational database management systems for data warehousing, including Informix, Oracle, Sybase/SQL Server and Red Brick.

About Prism Solutions

Prism Solutions, the leader in data warehouse management software, makes it easier to manage, understand and use business information. Built on the foundation of the information architecture developed by W.H. Inmon, the company provides products and services optimized for information technology professionals and business managers.

Prism's data warehouse management products are used by leading finance, insurance, manufacturing, retail, public utilities, telecommunications, transportation and high-technology companies. Prism Solutions' headquarters is located at 480 Oakmead Parkway, Sunnyvale, Calif.