The new Microstrategy

May this year, (check interview), Michael Saylor's, founder and CEO of Microstrategy, seemed to presage some changes in the company strategies. Indeed, in July, at the Microstrategy World Congress held in Barcelona, ​​its President, Paul Zolfaghari, announced the Microstrategy  new product strategy.

They have simplified their products into four main services: Server, Web, Mobile and Arquitech, and have entered in the competition for BI Desktop applications (which allow everybody to easily analyzing and presenting data without being an experienced user). In my opinion, all of this are steps in the right direction, in line with what market and users are asking for. I guess it was not easy at all: Microstrategy is still leading, (not just in turnover, also about product quality), customized BI software, but they have had the courage and vision to undertake the challenge; that shows that they know where they are and where they want to be. Good move, because other BI applications like Sisense or Qlik were already some steps ahead in this field. 

Simplification of products is a great success, but I think the most important one is the offering of a Free Desktop application, which confirms this system of catching new business definitely works. I've tried it the past few weeks and, although it is not yet at the level of quality of similar products, it is acceptable enough and easy to operate: in conclusion, a very good first step.

If you are use to work with Excel reports, I suggest that you to open your mind, download one of these applications, SiSense, Qlik or Microstrategy,  e.g. and start to create on them your graphs and tables; you are going to stand for the best quality of reporting but also you'll be surprised about how easily and quickly analyze, experiment and better understand the data you work with. There’re no excuses: the three of them are offering in their websites good quality training courses and support for free, and also a users knowledge database quite impressive.