MicroStrategy and Informix Partner to Provide Giant Food with Category Management Decision Support System

Business Wire, July 31, 1995

VIENNA, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 31, 1995--MicroStrategy, a leading provider of data warehouse and Decision Support Solutions, and Informix Software, the leading provider of parallel database technology, today announced that they are developing a sophisticated Category Management Decision Support System (DSS) for Giant Food using MicroStrategy's DSS Agent(TM) against the INFORMIX(R)-OnLine Dynamic Server(TM) database server.

Giant, one of the nation's largest retail grocery stores, is working with MicroStrategy to develop a system "that enables our Category Managers to analyze the vast array of data that is now available to make better decisions," said John D. Clutts, Senior Project Manager, Category Management Development. Using Microstrategy's DSS Agent, Category Managers can analyze item and category performance and conduct promotional analysis to determine the effectiveness of various sales methods on individual items. In addition, Giant will use the application to track and analyze sales trends and seasonality for store, category and item performance over time. This enhanced decision making is powered by the combination of MicroStrategy's DSS Agent analysis tool and the Informix RDBMS engine.

"We selected DSS Agent over other category management specific tools because we were impressed with its power and flexibility. Not only are we developing a sophisticated Category Management DSS, but we can also use it for our other analysis needs," said Clutts. After completing the Category Management DSS, Giant plans on developing a variety of other horizontal analysis applications.

"We are excited that Giant has chosen to use DSS Agent to fulfill its decision support needs," said Manish G. Acharya, MicroStrategy's director of marketing. "DSS Agent's powerful feature set allows Giant to perform complex multidimensional analyses (such as contribution, market share, and period-to-period comparisons) directly against its existing Informix database engine. With DSS Agent, combined with OnLine Dynamic Server, Giant has a powerful, scalable OLAP application without requiring additional investments in proprietary solutions."

"More and more of our customers are demanding a relational OLAP approach as part of their data warehouse strategy," said Marianne Elkholy, director of data warehousing marketing, Informix. "They don't want the additional resources required to maintain a separate multidimensional environment."

About MicroStrategy

MicroStrategy is a leading provider of high-end, enterprise-wide, open systems, data warehouse/decision support products and services to Fortune 1000 corporations. MicroStrategy's products include powerful end-user DSS applications, DSS application development tools, and robust analytical engines. In addition to its leading-edge software products, MicroStrategy offers in-depth consulting services and training courses/seminars. MicroStrategy's corporate headquarters is located at 8000 Towers Crescent Drive, Vienna, VA 22182; phone: 703-848-8692; fax: 703-848-8610; internet: info@strategy.com; world wide web site: http://www.strategy.com./.

About Informix

Informix Software is the leading supplier of high-performance, parallel processing database technology for open systems. The company's database servers are the number one choice of computer hardware manufacturers for publishing Transaction Processing Council (TCP) benchmarks for UNIX-based systems. Informix products also include application development tools for creating client/server production applications, decision support systems and ad hoc query interfaces, and connectivity software that allows information to be shared transparently from PCs to mainframes within the corporate computing environment. The company's corporate headquarters is in Menlo Park, California. -0-

Note to Editors: DSS Agent is a registered trademark of MicroStrategy, Inc. INFORMIX is a registered trademark, and Dynamic Scalable Architecture, OnLine Dynamic Server, and Extended Parallel Server, are trademarks of Informix Software, Inc. All other product names are trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such.

CONTACT: MicroStrategy, Inc., Vienna

Lisa Houde, 703/848-8692