MicroStrategy Giving Away Analytic Tool

October 29, 2013 Alex Woodie

IBM i shops in the market for a data analytic and visualization tool may want to add MicroStrategy‘s Analytics Desktop tool to their short list, for one very good reason: It’s free.

Analytics Desktop is a new, in-memory business intelligence tool unveiled last week by the Tysons Corner, Virginia, company. The product is a scaled-down version of existing Windows-based desktop analytics tools that it previously offered.

MicroStrategy says its new software will enable customers to detect patterns, trends, and relationships hidden in their data, and build visualizations and dashboards. Users can view, sort, pivot, drill, and apply statistical analysis with the Windows-based offering, all in a visual, drag-and-drop environment.

In other words, Analytics Desktop does many of the things that its competitors, namely Tableau Software and QlikTech, can do. But the software is free, which would seem to give it a big advantage at the bargaining table.

MicroStrategy isn’t exactly a household name in the IBM i community, but it’s not entirely an unknown entity, either. The company has pulled data from plenty of its clients’ AS/400, iSeries, and IBM i-based systems over the years. In 2011, the company formed a partnership with Magic Software that had an IBM i element.

The free software won’t solve all analytic needs. For customers that find they need more powerful software, MicroStrategy offers its Analytics Express and Analytics Enterprise offerings. For more info, see www.microstrategy.com.