Business intelligence vendor MicroStrategy Inc. announced Monday the release of a new scalable Web user interface that will run on Unix, Linux, and Microsoft Corp. Windows operating systems.
The new zero-footprint Web Universal is J2EE compliant and runs on the most popular application servers, including IBM Corp.'s WebSphere, Sun Microsystems Inc. One, and BEA Systems Inc.'s WebLogic.
Before this announcement, MicroStrategy's products were centered around Windows NT. While Unix-based business intelligence products often have been a poor cousin to their Windows-based counterparts, the new MicroStrategy architecture solves this problem because the company uses the same single code base for Windows and Unix, said Sanju Bansul, vice chairman and chief operating officer of MicroStrategy in McLean, Va.
"Some of the other players & have significantly different and lesser versions of their products on Unix," Bansul said. "We've created a more architecturally pure version of our product because it is a single code base that runs both on Unix and Linux."
IDC estimates that approximately 22 percent of the BI market is Unix- or Linux-based, said Henry Morris, an analyst with IDC. Web Universal's ability to run on Unix or Linux operating environments enables MicroStrategy to target a significant sector of the BI marketplace, he added.
The Web interface is designed to look as familiar as Windows and features drag-and-drop report creation, "Excel-like" formatting, advanced printing and exporting, and right-click menus for drilling, pivoting, and sorting.
In addition, Web Universal is designed to ease portal integration because developers can use JavaBeans within the architecture to embed interactive MicroStrategy reports with drilling, pivoting, sorting, and formatting capabilities into corporate portals.
Web Universal will be available Nov. 18.