microstrategy vs tableau

8/10/2019 MicroStrategy vs Tableau

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A Comparison White Paper by MicroStrategy

MicroStrategy 9 vs. Tableau 7


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Phone: 1.888.537.8135 Fax: 703.848.8610 E-mail: [email protected] http://www.microstrategy.com


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I. Executive Summary ............................................................................................................................ 4

II. Comparison of MicroStrategy 9 and Tableau 7 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 .................................................................................................... 18

5. Quick to Implement and Deploy, Easy to Maintain and Administer ............................................... 22

6. Highly Interactive and Flexible Mobile Intelligence ........................................................................ 26

7. Deep Insight through Superior Analytics ...................................................................................... 29

8. Flexible Technology for Departmental to Enterprise BI .................................................................. 31

III. MicroStrategy A Market Proven, Industrial-Strength Technology ............................................. 33

MicroStrategy 9 vs. Tableau 7


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I. Executive Summary

In the business intelligence (BI) marketplace, MicroStrategy competes with a number of vendors, including Tableau

Software. At rst glance, it would seem that companies can use either MicroStrategy 9 or Tableau 7 to support

their visualization, reporting and analysis needs. However, throughout the implementation and maintenance of BI

applications, companies are realizing signicant differences in the BI capabilities between MicroStrategy and less

robust BI technologies, such as Tableau.

MicroStrategy 9 builds on MicroStrategys unique strengths at the high-end of BI to extend the boundaries of

performance, scalability, reliability, and maintainability 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

multisource data access, In-memory ROLAP, Data Import, and Visual Insight. With MicroStrategy, business can

enjoy the best of both the worlds, i.e. all the benets of a robust BI platform, while providing exceptional exibility

and nimbleness to the business users for their self-service needs. Tableau, on the other hand, is a subject-oriented

analysis tool and does not provide a robust, enterprise-grade BI platform. Its capabilities are limited to ad-hoc

analysis and basic dashboard development from simple datasets.

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. BI tools, like Tableau,

face signicant challenges in managing and maintaining a growing BI deployment as they lack object-oriented

development, centralized metadata repository, robust administration, and centralized security management.

Tableaus lack of these capabilities results in redundant development and maintenance efforts and higher costs. In

contrast, MicroStrategys object-oriented development paradigm, and robust BI platform capabilities enable easy

development and maintenance of BI applications with minimum IT efforts and costs.

For nearly 20 years, MicroStrategy customers have gained an edge over their competitors with fast, agile analysis

using MicroStrategys sophisticated technology. Companies and industry analysts widely recognize MicroStrategy for

its administration-friendly architecture, robust security, self-service zero-footprint Web interface, innovative mobile

application platform, and proven user and data scalability.

This document discusses in detail the key differences between MicroStrategy 9 and Tableau 7.


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II. Comparison of MicroStrategy 9 and Tableau 7 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

efcient 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, because end users have more self-service capabilities

that ofoad work from the IT staff, and because it provides a comprehensive suite of administrative tools

requiring less IT administrators. Tableau provides limited metadata reusability across the entire BI platform.

As a result, it requires redundant development and maintenance efforts. Tableau administrators have fewer

administration tools that allow them efciently manage the 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 unied and home grown BI platform. MicroStrategy users get

a single version of the truth through interactive Web, Microsoft Ofce, and mobile device interfaces. Tableau

users are limited in the breadth of BI styles (no enterprise reporting, limited alerting and proactive notication,

limited predictive analysis capabilities, etc.) that they can accomplish. Tableau 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. Tableau provides limited capabilities through its Web interface. Tableau users can only

perform basic ltering, sorting, and exporting through the Web and cannot create new visualizations or modify

existing visualizations from the Web interface. As a result end users are limited in their abilities to self-serve.

4. High Performance at Any Scale ................................................................................................................ pg.18

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 exibility to answer any

analytical question in the most optimal manner. Tableau supports 64-bit for data loading but does not support

64-bit processing for data rendering. As a result, Tableau cannot take full advantage of 64-bit hardware,

limiting its performance and scalability. Tableau does not offer scalable and high performing in-memory ROLAP

architecture. As a result, Tableau deployments are typically departmental with low data volumes and limited

number of users.


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5. Quick to Implement and Deploy, Easy to Maintain and Administer ...............................................................pg.22

MicroStrategy provides organizations a platform that is quick to implement and deploy as well as easy to maintain

and administer. MicroStrategys single code base offers the unique advantage of reusable business logic across

the entire platform. MicroStrategys single BI server provides efcient, centralized administration for IT and fewer

moving parts which translate into less downtime. Tableau is quick to implement because it does not require

creating a metadata layer. However, lack of a common reusable metadata layer creates a maintenance challenge

as changes to common business logic are not automatically propagated to the entire BI deployment and Tableau

developers are typically forced to continually and manually synchronize metric denitions across the entire

deployment. Lack of a common semantic layer also promotes multiple versions of the truth and can lead to a

spreadmart problem.

6. Highly Interactive and Flexible Mobile Intelligence ................................................................................pg.26

MicroStrategy Mobile extends BI capabilities on mobile devices well beyond traditional grid and graph reports

and provides exceptional exibility for creating purpose-built, workow-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 efciencies needed

to deploy to hundreds of thousands of users while providing the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Tableau

does not follow an object-oriented development paradigm and provides minimum object reusability. As a result,

development and maintenance of mobile applications becomes more challenging. Tableau Mobile provides little

or no exibility to create workow driven apps and is used primarily for viewing the existing BI content on the

iPad. Functionality like delivering multiple forms of information through the app and transaction capability is not

provided, limiting the ability of Tableau to create rich mobile applications for closed loop analysis.

7. Deep Insight through Superior Analytics .................................................................................................pg.29

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. MicroStrategy

users can drill anywhere in the entire data warehouse for boundary-free investigative analysis. MicroStrategy

report designers and analysts can view and embed predictive analytics in reports and then distribute them to all

relevant decision makers and stakeholders. Tableau provides capabilities for performing basic statistical analysis

but does not provide advanced predictive analysis capabilities.

8. Flexible Technology for Departmental to Enterprise BI .........................................................................pg.31

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.

Tableau does not have a tool equivalent to Object Manager to aid in consolidating and reconciling disparate

departmental BI applications into an enterprise-wide BI application.


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1IDC. Demonstrating Business Value: Selling to Your C-Level Executives.

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 factoraffecting TCO is stafng cost, IT initiatives that can reduce IT labor costs are likely to nd greater acceptance among

nancial decision makers, and initiatives that enable IT consolidation or automation can signicantly reduce TCO

across the IT infrastructure. Figure 1 shows that over three years, IT stafng constitutes between 60 and 71% of BI

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

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

Three-Year Total Cost of Ownership Breakdown

Staffing (60%)

Downtime UserProductivity

(15%)

IT Staff Training(8%)

Server Hardware(7%)

Software (7%)

Outsourced Costs

(3%)

Source: IDC 2007.

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

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 stafng costs by switching from non-MicroStrategy BI tools

to MicroStrategys efcient 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.


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MicroStrategy Ranked Highest for Administration Efficiency

0.4 1.4 1.6 1.8 2.0 2.40.8 1.0 1.2 2.20.6

arplan

Bissantz

Board

Cubeware

IBM Cognos Analysis

IBM Cognos Reporting

IBM Cognos TM1

Information Builders

Infor PM

Jedox PALO

Microsoft SSAS

Microsoft SSRS

MicroStrategy

MIK

Oracle BIEE

Oracle Hyperion

Pentaho

QlikTech

SAP BO Webl

SAP BO Deskl

SAP BW/ BEx Suite

SAS

TARGIT

1.02

1.18

1.72

N/A

N/A

1.96

2.40

N/A

2.16

N/A

1.51

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

1.96

N/A

N/A

0.55

0.39

0.71

0.59

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 ofoad 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

implementations, and robust analytical capabilities. IT Senior Coordinator of Purchasing, 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.


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KEY COST REDUCING

CAPABILITYMICROSTRATEGY 9 TABLEAU 7

MinimizingDesignEffort

Dynamic Report

PersonalizationYES

MicroStrategy has very robust Prompting

engine. End users can dynamically author

reports at run time by selecting attributes,metrics, metric levels, templates, lters,

and even hierarchies. This greatly reduces

report design dependency on IT and the

number of reports for IT to maintain.

NO

Prompting is not supported by Tableau.

Only basic element list prompts can

be simulated by means of lters.Object prompts (like column and lter

prompting), hierarchy prompts, and

metric level prompts are not supported.

This results in creating and publishing

more views of reports than necessary.

Automatic Multi-source

Drill AnywhereYES

Business users can automatically drill

anywhere to any data source without IT

hard coding.

LIMITED

Tableau does not support automatic drill-

anywhere capabilities. Drilling is available

automatically only on time dimensions.

Formatting over the

WebYES

Easy What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get

(WYSIWYG) formatting allows business

users to format reports at runtime

without IT support.

NO

WYSIWYG design or modication is

not supported over the Web. Only

basic actions like ltering, sorting, and

exporting can be performed from the

Web interface.

One Repository of

Reusable Business LogicYES

Report developers can reuse all existing

business logic across the entire platform

rather than spending time recreating

business logic.

LIMITED

Tableau lacks a reusable semantic layer.

The lack of object reusability makes the

BI environment more difcult to maintain,

and increases the risk of having multiple

versions of the truth.

Visual Analysis for Rapid

Decision MakingYES

MicroStrategy Visual Insight allows

business users to intuitively visualize, lter,

and drill into their data. The drag-and-

drop, WYSIWYG interface allows business

users to make data driven decision quickly

and without any IT involvement.

YES

Visual analysis can be performed but

requires a thick client. End users using

the Web interface for performing analysis

are restricted to ltering, sorting, and

exporting.

MinimizingDe

ploymentEffort

One Report Design

Automatically Deploys

to Any Interface

YES

The same report design is automatically

optimized for interacting through all

interfaces including Web browsers, mobile

devices, and Microsoft Ofce; and formats

including PDF, Flash, and HTML.

LIMITED

Tableau provides limited integration

with Microsoft Ofce productivity tools.

Exporting interactive analysis to Flash is

not supported.

Browser Agnostic Zero-

footprint WebYES

Eliminates client installation costs and

ensures application is automatically updated.

Provides secure access for any browser

without IT effort or reliance on ActiveX

downloads or IE Active X dependence.

LIMITED

Tableau supports a zero footprint Web

interface. However, the capabilities

provided by the Tableau Web interface

are very limited.

Easy to Customize and

UpgradeYES

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.

LIMITED

Tableau provides very limited capabilities to

perform customizations.

Automated DeploymentYES

Automated life cycle management tool

synchronizes objects across development,

test, and production environments thus

greatly reducing manual work associated

with BI deployments.

NO

Tableau does not provide automated life

cycle management tools.


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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 Ofce, and mobile deviceinterfaces. 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

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

MicroStrategys long history and devotion to producing world-class business intelligence technology providedus with extreme condence 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 exibility in business intelligence than is currently available today. President, Aristocrat Technologies

Scorecards &

Dashboards

Enterprise

Repor4ng

OLAP Analysis &

Visual Explora4on

Data Mining &

Predic4ve Analysis

Mobile Apps &

Aler4ng

Ad Hoc Analysis

Predic4ve Analysis

Data Mining

Visual Explora4on

Slice & Dice Inves4ga4ve Analysis

Root Cause Determina4on

Pageperfect Opera4onal Repor4ng

Pixelperfect Business Repor4ng

Printperfect Statements & Invoices

Opera4onal Dashboards

Dynamic Scorecards

Metrics Management

Mobile Applica4ons

Massive Informa4on Distribu4on

iPad, iPhone , BlackBerry, email

Excep4onbased Alerts


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KEY BI REQUIREMENTS MICROSTRATEGY 9 TABLEAU 7

Dynamic Enterprise Dashboards

Dashboards integrated with

industrial-strength BI platform

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 ltering

Dashboard templates reduce

design time

Dashboard output caching in

HTML, PDF, Excel, and Flash for

instantaneous response

YES

Dashboards are created using reports

and objects from MicroStrategys single

metadata. Intelligence Server provides itssophisticated processing, security, caching,

and analytical capabilities.

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 lters to all

dashboard components and to synchronize

data across multiple analytical layers of

information. Users can automatically drill

throughout the full depth and breadthof 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.

LIMITED

Tableau dashboards cannot be created

over the Web and requires a thick client for

development. Dashboards do not supportPixel Perfect positioning. This creates

a development challenge and leads to

suboptimal utilization of screen real estate.

Tableau desktop lets users automatically

drill up and down within the time

dimension. However, drill hierarchies have

to be pre-dened for other dimensions.

Drilling can only be performed up or down

within the same hierarchy. It is not possible

to drill from one hierarchy to another.

Exporting Tableau dashboard to Flash

for interactive ofine analysis is not

possible. In order to view a dashboard

user will either require the desktop client

or will have to log into the Tableau Web.Sending interactive dashboards as an email

attachment is also not supported.

Tableau dashboards support multiple tabs.

However, multiple layers of analysis within

the same tab is not supported, resulting

in suboptimal utilization of dashboard

real estate. Dashboard templates are not

present to reduce dashboard development

time and efforts.

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

YES

MicroStrategy 9 provides an out-of-theboxlibrary 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 lter out other areas of the

dashboard. Each MicroStrategy widget

has exible capabilities and properties

that enable users to immediately identify

or further investigate trends or anomaliesin the data. For example, the Heat Map

widget incorporates OLAP technology

that enables users to lter 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.

LIMITED

Tableau provide limited out-of-the-boxlibrary of advanced visualizations. Tableau

does not provide Gauges, Waterfall

widgets, Funnel Graphs, RSS Readers,

Media, Data Clouds, Time Series

Sliders (they have very basic time series

visualization), Interactive Stacked Graphs,

and Weighted List Viewers.

Tableau provides limited selector controls.

Also, nesting of selectors is not supported.

Tableau lacks Fish Eye Selector, Date

Selectors, Radio Buttons, Button Bars, and

Link Bars.

Tableau does not allow extending or

importing visualizations.


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Robust Enterprise Reporting

Pixel Perfect absolute positioning

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

YES

MicroStrategy offers comprehensive

report styles for banded reports. These

documents are highly interactive, providingin-place OLAP analysis through pivoting,

drilling, and Excel-like formatting toolbars.

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 printedhorizontally or vertically. Users can

dynamically change the page layout, apply

t-to-page functionality, and customize

headers and footers for any report.

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.

NO

Tableau does not provide Enterprise

Reporting capabilities and is limited to only

ad-hoc visual analysis of data and basicdashboard development. Creating highly

formatted, pixel perfect reports, is not

supported.

Information Delivery and

Proactive Notification

Ability to self-subscribe and

subscribe others to report deliveries

Alerting and thresholds Wide range of output types: Web,

e-mail, print, fax, wireless, and le

server

Report bursting

Portal integration, with support for

portal servers including: Microsoft

SharePoint, SAP NetWeaver Portal,

Oracle WebLogic, and WebSphere

YES

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 le 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-the-

box, 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.

NO

Tableau does not support native report

bursting features and does not provide the

ability to self-subscribe, or subscribe others

to personalized reports or alerts based on

dynamic events, exception thresholds, or

time schedules.

Tableau Server does not provide the

capabilities to send alerts to end users via

mail or mobile devices when a threshold

condition is met or a KPI exception

happens.


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Flexible and Powerful OLAP

Interactivity

Drill anywhere fosters investigative

analysis

Derived elements and derived

metrics for on-the-y calculations

and groupings

View lters for quick data ltering

On the y creation of derived

elements, custom groups, subtotals,

etc.

Built-in nancial and statistical

functions

YES

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.

New derived metrics, derived attribute

element groups, lters, and subtotals

can be created on-the-y using existing

metrics and attributes in the report. This

functionality makes it possible for users

to perform new calculations, custom

groupings, and ltering directly on the

report at the speed of thought.

MicroStrategys analytical engine provides

hundreds of built-in nancial, statistical,

and mathematical functions.

LIMITED

Tableau does not support automatic

drill-anywhere functionality. Drilling is

automatically enabled only on the timedimension. In order to create drill paths

Tableau developers have to predene

hierarchies using the desktop interface. The

pre-dened hierarchies only allow drilling

up and down within the same hierarchy.

Users cannot drill from one hierarchy to

another.

Tableau does not recommend modeling

the entire database at once as it is a

subject-oriented analysis tool, i.e. a tool

for performing analysis on only the subject

at hand. Because of this reason, there are

typically 100s of small datasets oating

across the tableau deployment. Drill

hierarchies have to be individually dened

and maintained for each of these datasets

as the hierarchies are not common across

the entire deployment. This also means

that users are restricted to performing

analysis within a given dataset and cannot

seamlessly drill into the entire breadth and

depth of the corporate data, limiting their

investigative analysis capabilities.

New objects like new metrics, derived

metrics, subtotals, or new reports cannot

be created from the Tableau Web interface,

and as such, the analysis capability of end

users is signicantly constrained.

Seamless Microsoft Office

Integration

All Ofce 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 Ofce and Web

Server based conguration for

client settings, user, host, and IP

address settings

YES

MicroStrategy delivers the completereporting and analysis environment to

Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and

Outlook users. MicroStrategy Ofce

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 Ofce applications. Changes

made through Microsoft Ofce are

immediately reected across MicroStrategy

Ofce and Web interfaces and can

be saved to the enterprise business

logic metadata layer. Microsoft Ofce

formatting changes are preserved after

automatic data updates.The Web administrator can set client side

settings and security. Users can change

their passwords through the familiar

Microsoft Ofce interface.

LIMITED

Tableau provides the ability to export datato Excel. However, it does not support

exporting the data in its original format.

Graphs and charts can be exported as

images.

Tableau users cannot access existing

reports or create new reports from within

the Microsoft Ofce applications and

cannot save logic and formatting created

in Excel back to the Tableau metadata.


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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 knowany 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.

MicroStrategy Provides End Users with a Fast and Intuitive User Experience

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 condence that we had chosen

the right technology partner. IT Specialist at Silverstar Casinos

Add/Remove

A*ributes

Metrics

Many

Views

Easily Filterdata

Visually Analyze Data or

use OLAP enabled Grids

Drop Zones for

mulCdimensional

analysis

Add/Remove

Attributes

Metrics

Easily lterdata

Drop Zones for

multidimensional

analysisVisually analyze data or

use OLAP enabled grids


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User-Friendly Interface

Drag-and-drop 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 nal

report presentation

YES

The MicroStrategy Web interface

leverages many familiar, user-friendly

paradigms, including folder-treenavigation, ribbon toolbars, accordion

controls, control-click multi-select

capabilities, and context-sensitive right-

click actions.

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, column-

level values, metric headers, metric values,

subtotal headers, subtotal values, custom

groups, consolidation, and reports.

LIMITED

Tableau provides an intuitive and user

friendly interface. However, the capabilities

provided are very limited. For example,Tableau Web users cannot create new

reports, format existing reports, or add new

metrics to existing reports. This severely

limits the end user analysis capabilities

and makes them dependent on the IT

department. If the end users want to

create their own analysis they will have to

install and learn the Tableau desktop thick

client. Installing the Tableau desktop thick

client is not practical in case of large scale

deployments with 100s of information

consumers.

Self-Service Web Interface

Fully interactive interface with

controls for data formatting,

manipulation, and analysis

Real-time changes without a

publishing process

Creation of report objects, such as

prompts and lters, over the Web

What You See Is What You Get

(WYSIWYG) design and editing of

any report type over the Web

Zero-footprint Web interface from

any browser

YES

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, lters, 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-y.

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 aresult, report designers and business

users can use any browser to design and

interact with reports.

LIMITED

Tableau users have limited options to

analyze and modify data over the Web.

Users can only sort, export, lter, and

refresh data. Users cannot format the

visualizations that are published to the

Web or change the visualization styles.

Further, users cannot create or modify

visualizations, lters, prompts, metrics,thresholds, or subtotals over the Web

limiting their data analysis capabilities. As a

result of this limitation:

Only a select few can actually create

analysis (as the desktop license is

expensive), this also means that end user

requests will have to be routed through

a professional developer requiring

unnecessary iterations before business

users can actually get to the point of

performing analysis.

In scenarios requiring large scale

rollouts, end users will most likely use

the Web client which provides very basic

capabilities (ltering, sorting, etc). Users

cannot modify the analysis to perform

ad-hoc analysis thus missing most of the

benets that visual analysis tools offer.

WYSIWYG design or modication is not

supported over the Web.

Visualizations must be published to Tableau

server for consumption through Web. Real-

time changes without a publishing process

is not supported by Tableau.


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Advanced Self-Service

Functionality

Data Import

Visual Insight

YES

The Data Import and Visual Insight

functionality is designed to give more

control to business users. Business userscan 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 les, Excel

les, 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, lter,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.

LIMITED

Tableau does not provide the capability

to import data from the Web interface,

desktop client is required to set upconnections to data sources. As a result,

end users will have to make requests to

the IT department to set up access to data

sources as they will not be able to import

personal or corporate data that they want

to analyze directly from the Web interface.

Similarly, Tableau does not provide the

capability to build visual analysis through

the Web interface. This severely limits the

end user self-service capabilities.

Instant Response to User Actions

Extreme AJAX Web interface

High degree of client-side

processing while maintaining a

zero-footprint Web client

YES

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 muchmore responsive and interactive Web

experience while still preserving a true

zero-footprint Web interface.

LIMITED

Tableau supports a zero-footprint Web

interface. However, the functionality

supported by the Web interface is limited

to basic actions like sorting and ltering.


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Dynamic Report Personalization

Comprehensive parameter and

question prompting (column, lter,

search based, value, hierarchical)

Personal answers saved for reuse

across different reports

Security proles personalize report

content for individual users

YES

In MicroStrategy, a single report can span

hundreds of possible data combinations

tailored to different user needs.

MicroStrategy prompts provide report

input parameters that control most

aspects of a report, and give the user

signicant ad hoc reporting capabilities.

Prompts enable the personalization of

reports from a single report denition,

reducing the number of objects stored in

the metadata repository.

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 arepermitted by the user's security prole.

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.

NO

Prompting is not supported by Tableau.

Only basic element list prompts can be

simulated by means of lters.

Object prompts (like column and lter

prompting), hierarchy prompts, and metric

level prompts are not supported. This

results in creating and publishing more

views of reports than necessary. On the

other hand, with MicroStrategy, a single

highly prompted report can sufce the

analysis requirements of thousands of users

across multiple departments.

Furthermore, Tableau does not provide

a standalone prompt object that can be

reused across the entire deployment or

across multiple Tableau data sources.

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 64-

bit 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 userexperience with faster response times and to take unnecessary pressure off our Teradata system.

Manager of BI Architecture, eBay


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

BEFORE IN-MEMORY BI AFTER IN-MEMORY BI

OutputCaching

In-memory On-Disk

Caching Query

DatabaseQuery Slower

Response Time

Data SetCachingReport

CachingOutputCaching

DatabaseQuery

Data SetCaching

In-memoryQuery

ReportCaching

In-memory On-Disk

Caching Query

FasterResponse Time

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 vi rtual since relational databases often contain terabytes of data

that could not t 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 onthe 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 Multisource ROLAP Allows Data Environments to be Optimized for Performance and Cost

MicroStrategy Virtual Cube

Marketing

Data Mart

MicroStrategy Virtual Cube

Mfg

Data Mart

Enterprise

Data Whse

Sales

Data Mart

Financial

Data MartLookups, Aggregates,

Summary DataEnterprise Data Warehouse

Supporting Hub and Spoke Data Architectures Balance the Workload Across Databases

SQLServer

Teradata

MySQL

Netezza

SybaseIQ

SQLServerDB2

Figure 6: MicroStrategy Multisource 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.


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High Performance ROLAP Engine

Push-down joins

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 trafc

Automatic aggregate awareness

Database-specic SQL generation

and optimization through VLDB

drivers

YES

MicroStrategys ROLAP architecture uses

the database for much of its processing.

Data joins and analytic calculations areprocessed in the database whenever

possible. MicroStrategys multi-pass

approach provides the exibility 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

efciently and network trafc is minimized.

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 ne-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-specic

tuning parameters. Global SQL query

optimization algorithms optimize complex

queries to reduce the number of SQL

passes, providing further performance

improvement to queries.

LIMITED

Tableau does not recommend its customers

to model the entire database and positions

itself as a subject-oriented analysis tool.Tableau SQL engine is not designed to

handle complex datasets and is suitable

for only simple datasets with a single

fact table. As a result, Tableau is limited

in its ability to answer complex business

question involving data from multiple fact

tables and complex datasets.

Tableau does not support database

specic SQL generation or database

specic optimizations using VLDB settings.

MicroStrategy on the other, hand has

implemented unique optimizations for all

major database vendor including Aster,

Vertica, Greenplum, Netezza, and Teradata.

Tableau does not support multisource push-

down joining capability. When accessingmultiple sources using Tableau, the data is

pulled from each individual data source to

the mid-tier and then joins are performed

on-the-y by the mid-tier client, resulting

in unnecessary network conjunctions and

inefcient data processing.

Calculations like percent to total or

dimensional/level metrics are not performed

at the database level; rather, these types

of calculations are computed on-the-y by

the Tableau mid-tier, resulting in wasteful

utilization of the database processing power.

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

YES

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 failovercapabilities, so system resources are

allocated efciently and system uptime is

maximized. MicroStrategy clustered servers

support asymmetric congurations, 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.

NO

Tableau supports 64-bit for data loading

but does not support 64-bit processing for

data rendering. As a result, Tableau cannot

take full advantage of 64-bit hardware,

limiting its performance and scalability.

Tableau does not offer scalable and high

performing in-memory ROLAP architecture.

As a result, Tableau deployments are

typically departmental with low data

volumes and limited number of users.

Tableau is a Windows only application and

therefore deployment options are limited.

The distributed conguration of Tableau

Server helps with performance, but does

not help with reliability. Tableau does

not provide fail-over of the application

database; if the primary machine goes

down, the cluster as a whole is inoperative.

Tableau has limited customer

references for large scale user and data

implementations and is typically used in

small departmental deployments.


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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 unied 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 modelof 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

REPORT DESIGN

Layout

FormatCalculations

REPORT COMPONENTS

Parameterization

Templates

Filters

Autostyles

BUSINESS ABSTRACTION

Metrics

Hierarchies

Custom Groupings

Transformations

DATA ABSTRACTION

Attributes

Facts

Tables

Aliases

MicroStrategy Other BI

Technologies

Report-

SpecificComponents

Report-

Specific

Components

Reusable

Metadata

Components

Reusable

Metadata

Components

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 lters out data from any report based on the

security prole 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. 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 nowmore time to spend on operations and innovation. IT Specialist, Silverstar Casino


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Unified BI Architecture

Single interface provides seamless

integration of analytics and reporting

for root cause analysis

Single metadata reduces IT effort

Single Server

Single code base across platforms

Single, zero-footprint Web interface

YES

MicroStrategys single code base offers

reusable business logic across the entire

platform. For example, MicroStrategysdashboards can be made from

existing reports and objects, speeding

development and ensuring consistency

of report logic across reports and

dashboards.

MicroStrategys single BI server

provides efcient, centralized

administration for the IT administrator.

A single server with fewer moving

parts and processes translates into less

downtime.

LIMITED

Tableaus lack of object reusability

makes the BI environment more difcult

to maintain, and increases the risk ofhaving multiple versions of the truth.

Tableau is limited in its ability to provide

all ve styles of BI. For example, Tableau

cannot generate the complete range

of enterprise reports (highly structured,

multi-page reports); and provides limited

capabilities to deliver sophisticated user-

driven alerting.

Reusable and Rich Metadata Layer

Robust abstraction layer where all

physical constructs can be modeled

logically and hidden from the businessuser

Highly reusable metadata

Automatic change management

Object-oriented metadata

YES

MicroStrategys object-oriented

metadata denes 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 denitions

and minimizes the number of objects to

create and maintain.

MicroStrategy assembles all metadata

objects necessary for a report and

dynamically builds the report SQL at

run-time. Complex queries, such as set

qualications, dimensional calculations,

and custom groupings, are created easily

without requiring manual SQL coding.

NO

Tableaus lack of a unied object

oriented metadata results in redundant

development and maintenance efforts.

There is little object or metadata

reusability between dashboards making

it difcult to maintain a consistent

business view of the data. One change

to a business denition would involve

making changes to each Tableau

application one by one, a mistake-prone

and onerous process. The lack of object

reusability makes the BI environment

more difcult to maintain, and increases

the risk of having multiple versions of

the truth.


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Enterprise-Caliber Administration

Single management console

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

YES

MicroStrategys centralized

administration provides a single

console for real-time user and systemmanagement. Administrators can view

and perform tasks on many system-wide

activities, including executing jobs, user

management, and scheduled services.

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 journalingsystem 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 veries 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.

LIMITED

In order to be data scalable, simply

being able process large volumes of data

is insufcient. Large data volumes aretypically associated with

Complex Schema

Many tables and columns

Sophisticated analytical needs

Large number of users (which typically

translates to more reports to maintain)

Tableau is typically difcult to administer

under these conditions.

Tableaus capabilities to queue and

prioritize jobs are limited. As a result, the

administrator has little control to prevent

the server from being overtaxed or to

properly prioritize resource allocation.

Tableau provides system statistics to the

administrator for example, how many

users are logged in and how many jobs

are running. However, Tableau does

not allow the administrator to manually

log out users or kill jobs. In short, the

Tableau administrator can monitor the

system, but has little power to act.

Tableau does not support change

journaling capabilities out-of-the-

box and does not provide object

management and migration capabilities

to move selected objects from

development to production projects.

Tableau does not provide automated

regression testing tools to detect report

and data discrepancies caused by

changes in the BI system.

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

proles

User prole 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

YES

MicroStrategy provides centralized

security administration across the entire

platform. Reusable user proles 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 rewall.

MicroStrategy automatically integrateswith existing security authentication

infrastructure such as LDAP, NT,

Windows Active Directory, Tivoli, CA

SiteMinder, and database security.

LIMITED

Security has to be dened redundantly

for each Tableau workbook and there

is no way to centrally apply security

across the entire Tableau deployment. It

is not possible to centrally apply access

control privileges to individual objects

like metrics, lters, prompts, or custom

groups across the entire deployment.


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Easy to Maintain Global

Deployments

Native support for multilingual

deployments

Congurable 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 t ranslation

strings

Support for partially translated

metadata

Flexible support for multiple data

warehouse translation methods

Internationalization-aware data pre-

calculations

YES

MicroStrategy offers the ability to

dynamically present every report,

dashboard, or OLAP analysis in the locallanguage 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, row

level, table-level, and database-level. A

single In-memory ROLAP Cube supports

multiple languages so that resources are

used efciently.

NO

Tableau currently only supports English,

French and German and has very limited

international presence.

Tableau does not provide integrated

interfaces and wizards to manage

multilingual deployments.

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

YES

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 andmigration tasks by eliminating the need

to manually modify conguration les.

MicroStrategy provides Flex Builder 4.6

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.

LIMITED

Tableau does not provide a

customization editor that can be

used to easily create and maintain

customizations.


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6. HIGHLY INTERACTIVE AND FLEXIBLE MOBILE INTELLIGENCE

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 moredecisions quickly and easily.

MicroStrategy offers a very robust and innovative mobile app development platform that can be used either

for creating purpose-built, workow-driven mobile applications, or for directly displaying existing Reports and

Dashboards on mobile devices without the need of re-authoring.

MicroStrategy Mobile Apps:

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

fully utilizing MicroStrategys BI infrastructure, security, and reusable metadata components.

Are easier to maintain Changes to the centralized BI platform metadata are instantaneously 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 benets of MicroStrategys BI infrastructure: administration, security,

scalability, and performance.

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

Provide exceptional exibility The MicroStrategy app platform provides exceptional exibility 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 specically

designed for building rich mobile applications, while fully leveraging the underlying BI platform infrastructure.

Information at Your Fingerprints Using MicroStrategy's Workflow-Driven Mobile BI

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

App-Centric

Purpose-built, workow-driven Apps thatquickly and easily guide users through theirdata to discovery, analysis, or decision. Appsfully leverage mobile device capabilities,including the multi-touch interface, sensors(GPS, camera, etc.), communications (voice,email, text), and more.

Enterprise Grade

Designed to deliver the higher levels ofperformance and scalability demanded bymobile Apps. MicroStrategy delivers in-memory,multi-level caching, ROLAP analytics, robustsecurity, easy extensibility, and comprehensiveadministration features designed for enterprisedeployments.

Fast to App

Fast, code-free app development viaMicroStrategys metadata-driven, point-and-click paradigm. Build rich, interactive BI appsin just days. Speed deployment by buildingonce and deploying across platform to iPhone,iPad, BlackBerry, browsers, Microsoft Ofce,or portals.

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

capabilities it provides to help them enhance efciency 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, Alloso Technologies


Enterprise grade mobile application

Minimum development efforts

Minimum maintenance efforts

Superior performance and scalability

Minimum administration efforts

Multi-level BI platform securityextended to mobile devices

Data protection on the mobile device

YES

New reports for the mobile devices are

created by metadata driven, point-

and-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 code-

free environment. Changes to metadata

are instantaneously propagated to all

user interfaces. Changes are made only

once, and only at one place ensuring

hassle-free maintenance.

MicroStrategy Mobile leverages the

MicroStrategy platforms superior

performance, scalability, and

functionality provides rapid answers to

tens of thousands of users through their

mobile devices. Performance is further

enhanced by efciently caching reports,

and dashboards locally on the mobile

device.

MicroStrategy's acclaimed administrationtools provides the administration

efciencies needed to deploy mobile

applications to hundreds of thousands

of users, while providing the industry's

lowest total cost of ownership.

MicroStrategy Mobile utilizes the

same sophisticated user authorization

management framework available in the

MicroStrategy platform and in addition,

MicroStrategy provides a number of

different security features to protect

data stored on the device, including but

not limited to iOS Hardware Encryption,

iOS's "sandbox" to protects app data

from other apps, Locally-stored data

purged upon exiting the app, remote

wipe off in case the device is stolen, etc.

LIMITED

Tableau provides a hybrid app for the

iPad. However, for all other mobile

devices and operating system access

to Tableau content is only supported

through the Web browser. Tableau

mobile users have to be connected to

internet in order to view and interact

with the visualization. There is no ofine

analysis capability and reports cannot be

cached on the device for quick answers.

As a result, performance of the Tableau

mobile deployment is affected.

Tableau does not does not follow a true

object-oriented development paradigm,

and does not provide the same extent

of object reusability resulting in greater

development and maintenance efforts.

Tableau provides very limited

administration efciency tool to easily

manage and maintain the deployment.

There are typically a large number of

Tableau workbooks oating acrossa Tableau deployment. Tableau

Workbooks act as self contained

application with their own data and

metadata. Managing and maintaining

the large number of independent

workbooks becomes a challenge for

administrators and can easily lead to

spreadmart issues.


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Highly interactive and intuitive user

experience

Native mobile applications

Device-specic actions

o Multi-touch

o App integration

o Sensor based query

o Mobile Info capture

BI-specic features perfectly designed

to work with device specic capabilities

o Drill anywhere

o Swipe to page-by

o Integrated mapping

o Rich visualizations

o Alerts through push notications

o Prompting

o Subscriptions

Ofine analysis

YES

MicroStrategy provides native Apps

for mobile device. The native Apps are

designed to fully leverage mobile devicecapabilities including the multi-touch

interface, sensors (GPS, camera, etc.),

communications (voice, email, text), and

more.

The MicroStrategy Mobile Apps provide

a vast range of BI specic functionality

that is designed to leverage, and work

seamlessly with the device capabilities.

The BI functionality includes integrated

Google maps, OOTB drill-anywhere, a

vast library of advanced visualizations,

device specic actions to perform BI

specic tasks such as swipe (horizontally

or vertically) to page-by, alerts for report

refresh or data changes through push

notications, intelligent prompting,

metric swapping, and much more.

With MicroStrategy Mobile, reports are

cached directly on the mobile devices

for fast, ofine 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 Blackberry device and

do not have to wait for IT to create

subscriptions for them.

LIMITED

Tableau mobile fails to provide intuitive

user experience that mobile users

are accustomed to. Tableau mobileinterface supports only basic ltering

and sorting of data. Other BI specic

functionality like drill-anywhere, swipe to

page-by, alerting through Apple's push

notication, prompting using the native

controls, metric swapping for efcient

real estate utilization, or annotation

capability is not supported.

Tableau delivers only traditional BI

through mobile devices. They do not

provide the exibility to implement

unique workows to suite specic

requirements and business process of

different organizations.

Tableau does not support ofine analysisby caching data locally on the device.

Tableau mobile users must be connected

to the internet to view and interact with

Tableau BI content.

App Development Platform

Flexibility to create any informationworkow

Ability to deliver multiple forms of

information through the mobile app

Actionable mobile apps

YES

MicroStrategy App platform providesexceptional exibility 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.

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. In addition, MicroStrategy Mobile

also provides In-App PDF reader, Email,

Browser, HTML containers, and optimized

ePub handling.

MicroStrategy provides the ability to imple-

ment, 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 ac-

tions from within the mobile apps.

LIMITED

Tableau delivers only traditional BIthrough mobile devices. They do not

provide the exibility to implement

unique workows to suite specic

requirements and business process of

different organizations.

Tableau mobile BI application is

limited only to view the pre-created

visualizations and does not support

delivering multimedia content like

photos, videos, PDF les, or ePub

documents through the mobile app.

Tableau does not provide the ability to

implement, and embed transactional

capabilities into the information driven

mobile apps.


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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

microstrategy vs tableau

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