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Technology Stocks : MicroStrategy Inc. (MSTR) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brad Rogers who wrote (243)	10/30/1998 4:12:00 PM
From: Beltropolis Boy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 717

InformationWeek October 26, 1998, Issue: 706 Section: Top Of The Week Vendors Keep Up With OLAP Market -- Brace For Microsoft Entry With Upgrades Beth Davis Two top OLAP vendors are enhancing their product lines to maintain their leads in an increasingly crowded market as they await the arrival of Microsoft's first online analytical processing server. MicroStrategy Inc. this week will upgrade its decision-support system, DSS Server, and its Web-based client, DSS Web, with more flexible reporting and management features. Hyperion Solutions Corp. last week launched integration software to help IT shops cut development time for analytical applications. The OLAP market will grow to nearly $2 billion by year's end, according to The OLAP Report, an online research report. Microsoft's release next month of its OLAP server, to ship with SQL Server 7.0, could make general-purpose OLAP a commodity, analysts say. Microsoft's entrance into the market also means that higher-end vendors will have to differentiate themselves, says Don MacTavish, a Meta Group senior research analyst. But MicroStrategy's and Hyperion's products already have one advantage over Microsoft's, which is code-named Plato, says Robert Craig, VP of application architectures at the Hurwitz Group. Plato's limitations "have to do more with the limitations of Windows NT," he says. "The fact that the other tools run on NT and Unix gives them an edge." New reporting functions in MicroStrategy's products let users combine grids and graphs in one report. A management feature lets administrators set priorities so that databases are optimized for different kinds of reports, such as ad hoc queries. Available now, DSS Server 5.5 is $65,000. DSS Web 5.5 will ship in December, for $495 per user. With the Hyperion Integration Server, users can create and deploy OLAP apps--such as a data mart--in just hours, according to the company. A metadata catalog also makes it easier to categorize data and manage a number of analytical applications. The product is available now, priced at $20,000. Last week, Hyperion Solutions reported revenue of $105 million for its first quarter. Net income rose 66% to $8.8 million, excluding a $21.8 million one-time charge relating to its merger with Arbor Software, compared with $5.3 million for the same time last year. Copyright ® 1998 CMP Media Inc.