MicroStrategy 9 Release 2 Roadshow – Dispatch #3

Three cities, three states, and three very successful roadshow events. I’ve really enjoyed getting to meet up with such a large and diverse number of customers in their home cities. And getting to go out running in Seattle, Portland, and Denver. Looking forward to this week where I visit:

• Houston, TX at the St. Regis Houston today at 9am;
• Atlanta, GA at the Grand Hyatt Buckhead tomorrow the 10th at 9am;

If you live in or near these cities I encourage you to come along, have continental breakfast, hear about the latest release, and the technology strategy and vision. Come and say hello. Mention you read this blog and I’ll apologize in person for the lackadaisical attitude towards standard grammar rules and structure.

That’s this week. What about last week? Well, on Tuesday 4th March I presented our latest release (MicroStrategy 9 Release 2) and the MicroStrategy Technology Strategy & Vision to a collection of people in Seattle, Washington. After the presentation piece, we had customer speakers from Wilbur-Ellis talk about their implementations, and what they we’re most excited about in MicroStrategy 9 Release 2. Other customers, partners, and prospects really seemed to appreciate the chance to learn about Wilbur-Ellis’ implementations and ask specific questions about their experiences, challenges, and future plans. One of the biggest values from organizations attending these local city events is from sharing with other companies who use MicroStrategy BI.

On Wednesday 5th March I presented in Portland, Oregon. One of the customer speakers at that event was from Con-way Freight. Con-way have very well-established implementations bringing huge value to their organizations. They were excited about MicroStrategy 9 Release 2, and the huge performance gains it’ll bring to their organization.  Con-way have such great BI stories – I always use Con-way BI anecdotes when sharing cool BI stories with other customers or talking about Advanced Analytics, or Huge rapid ROI (like – tens of millions of dollars in a couple of months – no kidding)… so it was great to meet the people who built the applications and analytics that turned into my favorite BI anecdotes.

On Thursday 6th March I presented in Denver, Colorado. The customer discussion was more open in Denver, giving everybody a chance to express their interests, share implementation stories, or ask other local MicroStrategy users questions about their experiences. Some of the customers sharing their insights were Cabela’s and Sports Authority. Cabela’s drove all the way from Nebraska, so it was great to meet up with them afterwards and talk more about their experiences, discuss Mobile Intelligence, and talk about the pros and cons of buying either a quarter or a half of a cow.

Some key re-occurring themes from customers across all three events:

• Higher Performance – Specifically, MicroStrategy 9 Release 2 and Performance – everybody is super excited to take full advantage of the performance improvements in MicroStrategy 9 Release 2.
• Integrity Manager – All of the customers who have Integrity Manager are SO happy with it… customer after customer stood up and talked about how much easier it made their lives when testing BI output after any change. I wish I could record people’s comments about Integrity Manager, and just put them up on this blog or on the website – anybody who isn’t using Integrity Manager is missing out on: 1) making their live easier 2) reducing risk in their BI environment, and 3) assuring their users after any BI ecosystem change
• DashboardApps – It’s a term a lot of people are unfamiliar with, but after explaining that what DashboardApps are, a number of customers have come up to me to say “that’s what are organizations are asking us to build, and that’s what we’ve been building for our casual bi users”. The explanation of what DashboardApps are really seems to help solidify what organizations can do with their BI platform – use it as a personalized DashboardApp generator, support casual BI users, deliver a new breed of BI to reach out to 1000s of non-BI people to provide analysis, insight and support better business decision making.
• In-Memory Cubes – Some customers seem to be taking advantage of In-memory cubes, and some seem to be exploring this within development… there’s clearly huge performance gains waiting for customers as they take advantage of building In-memory intelligence cubes… I see this as low hanging fruit for a lot of customers who are yet to start deploying in-memory cubes. Maybe hanging even lower than the value from getting and using Integrity Manager (as if such a thing were possible).
• Consolidation under MicroStrategy – Consolidating multiple MicroStrategy applications into enterprise applications, or, more often, replacing other BI vendors departmental applications which has had limited success or resulted in near failure, and providing these departments with best of breed BI from MicroStrategy. Because MicroStrategy provides the lowest cost of ownership and by far the best BI Platform. By replacing other BI vendors with MicroStrategy, organizations are able to pass on these advantages, and other economies of scale.

Can’t wait to go home and spend some time with the wife and kid. Until next time.

* Editor’s Note 3/29/10: Some customers referenced in the original post have been removed per request.

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Tags: customers, In-Memory BI, MicroStrategy 9 Release 2, roadshow

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 10:02 am and is filed under customers, events, Product News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.