MicroStrategy Announces Enhanced Versions of DSS Web and DSS Server

Business Wire, Oct 26, 1998

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 27, 1998--

New 5.5 Versions offer Advanced Reporting Functionality on Top of

the Industry's Most Powerful Analytical Engine for Enterprise-Wide

DSS Solutions

MicroStrategy Incorporated (NASDAQ:MSTR), a leading worldwide provider of mission-critical decision support systems, today announced upgrades to its DSS Web(tm) and DSS Server(tm) products, two of the main components used for the development and deployment of enterprise-wide decision support solutions.

MicroStrategy(R) designed DSS Web 5.5 and DSS Server 5.5 to provide organizations a comprehensive front and back-end platform to optimize their DSS solutions, offering world-class reporting flexibility on top of the most advanced analytical processing engine in the industry.

"As we solidify our position as a leading platform for enterprise decision support applications, it is imperative to deliver products that benefit everyone in the organization, from the end-user community to the system administrators," said Michael J. Saylor, president and CEO of MicroStrategy Incorporated. "The new versions of DSS Web and DSS Server ensure that organizations have the products required to develop a world-class solution that can be deployed to thousands of users and deliver tremendous business benefits."

To develop successful decision support projects, organizations need an interface with report formatting to meet the needs of all levels of end-users, combined with high-performance, low-cost per user back-end functionality that delivers efficient management and maintenance capabilities to a DBA. New features in DSS Web 5.5 and DSS Server 5.5 benefit organizations by helping them reach theses requirements. The new features can be grouped into the categories of:

- Presentation Quality Report Formatting; - Usability; - Enhanced Performance; and - Efficient, Large-Scale Administration.

Presentation Quality Report Formatting

- Combined grids and graphs on the same report - Providing users

with more reporting flexibility to easily spot data trends.

- Individual Cell Formatting - Providing users with complete

formatting freedom, allowing them to focus on communicating the

value of the information, not its presentation.

- Other features that lead to presentation quality report formatting

include Multiple Report Workbooks, Grid Format Templates, and

Print Preview.

Usability

- Report Status and Cancel - Enabling users to check on the status

of reports, and cancel unwanted reports. This increases user

control and decreases the IT support burden.

- Asynchronous Reporting - Ensuring that reports will continue to

run after the web browser is closed, increasing work flexibility

and overall productivity.

- Other features that lead to enhanced performance include a Report

History List.

Enhanced Performance

- Application Clustering and Consolidation - Increasing query

performance with less hardware.

- Different Thread Management Algorithms - Allowing DBAs to

independently optimize for varying system demands, improve query

response times, and increase report throughput.

Efficient, Large Scale Administration

- Assign interface and warehouse language by user - Enabling

organizations to easily manage multilingual projects.

- High frequency Report Scheduling - Allowing DBAs to distribute

reports for improved query response time and throughput, as well

as support applications which require frequent data loads.

- Other features that lead to efficient, large scale administration

include Automated Administration, Cache Manager Utility and Log

File Viewer

Pricing, Platform and Availability

DSS Server 5.5 is available immediately. DSS Server runs on Windows NT or Windows 95, and is priced at $65,000 per server. DSS Web 5.5 also runs on Windows NT, and will be available in December. DSS Web 5.5 will be priced at $495 per user with discounts for volume purchases. The purchase of DSS Web Server is required at $35,000. All products may be purchased directly from MicroStrategy or from authorized re-sellers around the world.

About MicroStrategy Incorporated

MicroStrategy is a leading worldwide provider of enterprise decision support system ("DSS") software and related services. MicroStrategy's suite of products (DSS Suite(tm)) enables both active and passive delivery of information from large-scale databases, providing Global 2000 enterprise user communities with timely answers to mission-critical questions.

MicroStrategy's decision support platform enables users to query and analyze the most detailed, transaction-level databases, turning data into business intelligence. In addition to supporting internal enterprise users, MicroStrategy's products extend DSS beyond corporate boundaries to customers, partners and supply chain constituencies through a broad range of pull and push technology such as the Internet, e-mail, telephones, pagers and other wireless communications devices. MicroStrategy also offers a comprehensive set of consulting, training and support services for its customers and partners.