MicroStrategy Announces DSS Web; First Relational OLAP Interface for Accessing Data Warehouses Via the World Wide Web

Business Wire, Feb 5, 1996

ORLANDO, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 5, 1996--MicroStrategy, the largest relational on-line analytical processing (ROLAP) vendor today announced DSS Web, the first product to enable end users to conduct OLAP analyses over the World Wide Web (WWW).

DSS Web is a relational OLAP interface which enables end users to access data warehouse and decision support applications through Internet browsers. DSS Web is a completely server-based application, therefore it drastically reduces the deployment, maintenance, training, hardware, and software costs normally associated with data warehouse implementations.

"DSS Web signals a new era in data warehouse access," said Michael Saylor, president and CEO of MicroStrategy. "The web represents the universal software socket, removing most economic and technical barriers to the distribution of decision support applications. Using DSS Web, it is now possible for companies to provide decision support services to their employees, investors, suppliers, partners, distributors, and customers without regard to geographic, organizational, political, or technical boundaries. Our corporate vision is a crystal ball on every desktop, and we expect to achieve this with DSS Web."

Via seamless integration with DSS Server, DSS Web provides internet users with the capability to perform advanced OLAP analyses directly against data warehouses scaling to one terabyte and beyond. DSS Web provides full ad hoc, autoprompting, and drill down capabilities with presentation quality graphs and grids, all within the framework of the World Wide Web. DSS Server's ROLAP engine is the first to employ RDBMS-specific VLDB drivers to provide high-performance access for leading databases such as Oracle, Informix, DB2, Sybase, Red Brick, Teradata, and Non-Stop SQL.

"By integrating DSS Web with MicroStrategy's award-winning Relational OLAP Architecture, it is now possible to immediately and cost effectively provide data warehouse access to thousands of users any time, anywhere, via the World Wide Web," said Sanju K. Bansal, MicroStrategy's executive vice-president. "By providing superior deployment speed, unlimited access, and a single point of maintenance, DSS Web enables corporate IS to simultaneously reduce costs, lower development risk, and increase user functionality."

Extensible Development Environment

DSS Web applications can be enhanced by using any standard HTML authoring tools such as PageMill, Hot Dog, Web Author, Webber and Internet Assistant. In addition, custom applications can be implemented using Java/JavaScript compliant development tools such as Netscape's LiveWire Pro.

Strategic Partnership Provide Total Solutions

"A number of our customers -- including large retail, financial and communication industry customers -- are looking for WWW-based data warehouse access to leverage and grow their warehouse investments and improve integration with suppliers and customers," said Dan Harrington, NCR's Vice President - Computer Systems Group Solutions Marketing. "With the Web's growing popularity and instantaneous access, we expect that the Web user base for data warehousing will increase 100 to 1000 times over where it is today. NCR's systems and the Teradata database provide the performance and scalability to meet the high concurrent access requirements that warehouse and Web integration will require. We're partnering with MicroStrategy because they have the most scalable, high-performance relational OLAP solutions today."

Beta Clients Excited About DSS Web

Hannaford Bros. Co. is a $2.5 billion grocery chain with over 140 stores in the eastern United States. Hannaford is implementing a corporate information system which will give all decision makers access to relevant sales, cost, inventory, and budget data. Hannaford wanted to deploy its DSS to its stores, but faced significant challenges due to satellite bandwidth limitations and software maintenance concerns. "DSS Web, with its centralized application management its low network bandwidth requirements, and its fast response times made store-level decision support possible," said Rich Schilling, project director at Hannaford. "DSS Web provides our remote users with access to the same reports that our corporate end users have access to. From both systems perspective and an end user perspective. DSS Web provides a powerful, fast, and easy-to-support solution for deploying DSS applications."

Multi-Platform Support

DSS Web is compatible with a variety of World Wide Web browsers and servers including Netscape, Microsoft, Spyglass, and Oracle, running on all major operating systems, including Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows NT, OS/2, Macintosh, and Unix.

Pricing and Availability

DSS Web is currently in Beta, with a targeted general release date of March 30, 1996. Pricing for a bundle including DSS Web and DSS Server starts at $50,000 and varies with concurrent user levels. DSS Web is available directly from MicroStrategy and its affiliated distributors, resellers, VAR and OEM partners.