Ascential Software Helps MicroStrategy to Channel Critical Business Information
Wednesday October 22, 9:05 am ET
"Aqueduct" Enterprise Data Warehouse Initiative Integrates Disparate Information, Improves Operational Efficiency
WESTBORO, Mass., Oct. 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Ascential Software Corporation (Nasdaq: ASCL - News), the enterprise data integration leader, today announced that MicroStrategy® Incorporated (Nasdaq: MSTR - News), a leading worldwide provider of business intelligence software, has selected Ascential(TM) DataStage® to help deliver transparency to all aspects of business performance.
Ascential DataStage, a key component of the Ascential(TM) Enterprise Integration Suite, will automate the data transformation and movement from more than a dozen enterprise applications into MicroStrategy's enterprise data warehouse, called Aqueduct(TM). With Ascential DataStage, MicroStrategy will be able to update warehouse information on demand, rather than once per day.
As a result, MicroStrategy will be able to more efficiently perform monthly and quarterly financial closes, better serve its customers, and provide every employee with more frequent updates on performance metrics for which each individual is accountable. Metrics include business unit profit- and-loss, personal sales achievement and customer relationship management. In addition, automating data transformation will enable IT staff to spend less time developing, maintaining and fixing hand-coded data transfer applications so the department's small applications team can spend more time on projects with higher returns.
"Timely access to corporate data is critical for any company's performance," said MicroStrategy's COO Sanju K. Bansal. "The more up-to-date and complete our enterprise information, the better decisions we can make to help ensure our success. Ascential DataStage helps us accomplish this by extracting data from myriad sources in an organized and well-managed process. The data can then be transformed into an Aqueduct-format, allowing us to load it on demand, translating into improved service and performance."
MicroStrategy frequently uses Aqueduct as a case study when selling its own business intelligence software. Aqueduct is a sterling example of how business intelligence can allow a company to plan and manage results by viewing information that can be sliced for every business unit, for every manager, for every line of business, for every product, and for every customer; and allowing users to investigate the issues from the lowest level of transactional detail to the highest level of P/L reporting.
Ascential Software and MicroStrategy - A Multi-Faceted Alliance
In addition to being a customer, MicroStrategy is an important Ascential Software business partner. The two companies work together to deliver world- class business intelligence solutions. Hundreds of enterprise customers use Ascential Software's data integration technology and MicroStrategy's business intelligence applications to increase productivity and improve cost efficiencies.
"With Aqueduct, MicroStrategy has developed intelligent enterprise reporting to help all aspects of its business - from HR to sales to accounting - to make informed business decisions based on current, accurate data," said Mark Register, vice president and chief marketing officer at Ascential Software. "DataStage provides MicroStrategy with the ability to integrate two years' worth of data from more than a dozen applications on the fly. Implementing both platforms together gives MicroStrategy a great foundation for business decisions, and the information frequency needed to stay on top of changing conditions."
About MicroStrategy Incorporated
Founded in 1989, MicroStrategy is a worldwide leader in the increasingly critical business intelligence software market. Leading Fortune 2000 companies are integrating MicroStrategy's industrial-strength software into virtually all facets of their businesses. The MicroStrategy Business Intelligence Platform(TM) distills vast amounts of data into vital, probing insight to help drive cost-efficiency, productivity, customer relations and revenue- generation. MicroStrategy offers exceptional capabilities - excellent scalability, powerful analytics, user-friendly query and reporting features and an outstanding, easy-to-use Web interface. Top companies are using MicroStrategy to cost-effectively harness large, multi-terabyte databases; empower thousands of employees at all operational levels; and extend the benefits of business intelligence enterprise-wide and beyond to customers, partners and suppliers.
MicroStrategy has over 2,200 enterprise-class customers, including General Motors, Best Buy, Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse, Yahoo!, Visa International, Wells Fargo, Telecom Italia, AT&T Wireless Group and Aventis. MicroStrategy also has relationships with over 500 systems integrators and application development and platform partners, including IBM, PeopleSoft, Sun and Hewlett-Packard. MicroStrategy is listed on Nasdaq under the symbol MSTR. For more information or to purchase or demo MicroStrategy's software, visit MicroStrategy's Web site at microstrategy.com.
About Ascential Software
Ascential Software Corporation is the leading provider of enterprise data integration solutions to organizations worldwide. Customers use the Ascential Enterprise Integration Suite to integrate and leverage data across all transactional, operational, and analytical applications with confidence in the accuracy, completeness and timeliness of critical information. Ascential Software's powerful data profiling, data quality, data transformation, parallel processing, meta data and connectivity solutions enable customers to reduce total cost of ownership and increase return on IT investment. Headquartered in Westboro, Mass., Ascential Software has offices worldwide and supports more than 3,000 customers in such industries as financial services, telecommunications, healthcare, life sciences, manufacturing, consumer goods, retail, and government. More information on Ascential Software can be found on the Web at www.ascential.com.
Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: This release contains forward-looking statements based on current expectations or beliefs, as well as a number of assumptions about future events, and these statements are subject to important factors and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements in this release address a variety of subjects including, for example, the functionality, characteristics and performance capabilities of Ascential's products and technology, the ability of Ascential to help deliver transparency to all aspects of business performance and Ascential's ability to automate the data transformation and movement from multiple applications into a customer's enterprise data warehouse. The following factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in these forward- looking statements: risks relating to the ability of Ascential to expand its market share, growth rates for the enterprise data integration software market, integration/divestiture issues resulting from merger/acquisition activities, our customer's business requirement and ability to update warehouse information on demand, general business conditions in the software industry, the technology sector, and in the domestic and international economies, rapid technological change in the markets served by Ascential, dependence on international operations, and difficulties that Ascential may experience integrating technologies, operations and personnel of completed or future acquisitions. For a detailed discussion of these and other cautionary statements, please refer to the filings made by Ascential with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including, without limitation, the most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. Ascential disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statements made herein to reflect any change in Ascential's expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions, or circumstances on which such statements are based.
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Source: Ascential Software Corporation |
