How Can We Help You
Leverage Technology
to Build Your Business?

Concept Information Systems and MicroStrategy Introduce Q-Manufacturing for Supply Chain Decision Support

End-to-End Data Warehousing Solution Maximizes the Value of Information in ERP Systems

VIENNA, VA, December 7, 1998 — MicroStrategy® Incorporated (NASDAQ: MSTR), a leading worldwide provider of mission-critical decision support systems, and Concept Information Systems (http://www.conceptinfo.com) today announced the availability of Q-Manufacturing, a powerful data warehousing and decision support solution that extends the value and reach of information in enterprise resource planning (ERP) and supply chain applications. Developed by Concept using MicroStrategy’s product line, DSS Suite™, Q-Manufacturing merges information from various operational systems into a central data warehouse, enabling consumer goods and manufacturing companies to improve efficiency, control production costs, and anticipate customer demand.

In recent years, manufacturing companies around the world have been evaluating and implementing ERP and other supply chain management transactional systems to help optimize daily operations. While these systems are good for streamlining day-to-day activities, they do not allow users to analyze information from disparate information sources, view historical trends, pinpoint inefficiencies, or identify new opportunities.

Q-Manufacturing is the first product to pull data from all the major ERP and transaction management products—including SAP, Baan and Manugistics—into a common data warehouse. With a MicroStrategy-based interface that is tailored to meet the needs of manufacturers, business users can answer questions like, "How much revenue do we lose due to unfulfilled orders?" "Are we producing products in areas where there is no demand?" "What is our service level to our top 25 customers?"

Q-Manufacturing allows companies to easily view and analyze data across functional areas such as financials, product lines and geographic regions, enabling them to determine where to focus resources and how to optimize efficiency throughout the supply chain. Without Q-Manufacturing, a company must perform analysis in "departmental silos" and cannot view historical transactional information, severely limiting its perspective on the overall business.

"With the introduction of Q-Manufacturing, Concept Information Systems and MicroStrategy are pioneering a new class of technology that combines best-of-breed ERP and DSS technology, allowing companies to maximize the value they can gain from their operational systems," said Sanju K. Bansal, executive vice president and chief operating officer at MicroStrategy Incorporated. "With MicroStrategy’s DSS Suite at the heart of the architecture, Q-Manufacturing has unparalleled analysis capabilities that will help manufacturers improve every aspect of their supply chain. Its flexibility and performance set a new standard in this burgeoning area of decision support."

"Through our extensive work with manufacturing companies, Concept Information Systems quickly recognized the need for a packaged solution that would help businesses better leverage the wealth of information they collect in their operational systems," said Bob Cooke, president of Concept Information Systems. "We turned to MicroStrategy to be the platform for Q-Manufacturing because its products incorporate all of the characteristics our customers are looking for in a solution: flexibility, power, ease-of-use, and a variety of deployment options."

Clairol Reaps Benefits of Q-Manufacturing

Clairol, the leading provider of hair care and hair coloring products, has a state-of-the art supply chain management and ERP system that helps it manage the day-to-day production and supply of its products. The company quickly realized, however, that it needed a data warehousing solution that would give it more sophisticated analysis and ad hoc reporting capabilities. After a thorough evaluation of the market, Clairol turned to Concept’s MicroStrategy-based solution, Q-Manufacturing, to help Clairol’s business planners, executives and manufacturing management dissect every aspect of its business to improve process and run the business most effectively.

"Q-Manufacturing is extremely exciting for Clairol," said Kathy Shea, director of operations systems at Clairol. "Because we have a packaged solution, we can roll it out to all our sites globally and we don’t have to worry about maintaining a custom-developed product. For the first time, we will have the flexibility to interactively analyze the performance of our supply chain and use that information to allocate operations resources appropriately. This product will help maintain our position as one of the leading hair care products companies in the world."

Components of Q-Manufacturing

Q-Manufacturing contains all of the components necessary to quickly roll out a successful ERP-based data warehouse and decision support solution, including:

• Extraction routines from ERP, demand planning and supply chain systems
• Data warehouse and data mart model
• Data movement and data warehouse population routines
• Business-oriented decision support solution that includes analytical templates and a customized front end tailored to meet the needs of manufacturing companies

Q-Manufacturing also ships with several modules that help jump start companies’ analysis efforts—including capacity planning and analysis, forecasting, production and schedule analysis, and an executive dashboard.

About Concept Information Systems

Concept Information Systems is a privately held, Stamford, CT-based company, founded in 1994 that specializes in designing and implementing business intelligence solutions which are comprised of decision support, online analytical processing (OLAP) and data warehousing/data marting. It takes advantage of its in-depth knowledge and experience in specific industries to lead customers through their complex business processes to increase the business value of their corporate information. Concept’s proven methodology has assisted in planning and managing the growth of its customers’ first decision support solution into multiple strategic decision support solutions that ultimately span the enterprise. For more information about Concept Information Systems, visit its web site at http://www.conceptinfo.com.

About MicroStrategy Incorporated

MicroStrategy is a leading worldwide provider of enterprise decision support system (“DSS”) software and related services. MicroStrategy’s product line (“DSS Suite”) enables both active and passive delivery of information from large-scale databases, providing Global 2000 enterprise user communities with timely answers to mission-critical questions.

MicroStrategy’s decision support platform enables users to query and analyze the most detailed, transaction-level databases, turning data into business intelligence. In addition to supporting internal enterprise users, MicroStrategy’s products extend DSS beyond corporate boundaries to customers, partners and supply chain constituencies through a broad range of pull and push technology such as the Internet, e-mail, telephones, pagers and other wireless communications devices. MicroStrategy also offers a comprehensive set of consulting, training and support services for its customers and partners.

For more information, please visit MicroStrategy’s Web site: www.strategy.com.

This press release includes statements that may constitute “forward-looking” statements, usually containing the words “believe”, “estimate”, “project”, “expect” or similar expressions. Forward-looking statements inherently involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include continued acceptance of the Company’s products in the marketplace, the timing of significant orders, delays in the Company’s ability to develop or ship new products, market acceptance of new products, competitive factors, general economic conditions, currency fluctuations, and other risks detailed in the Company’s registration statements and periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. By making these forward-looking statements, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these statements for revisions or changes after the date of this release.

MicroStrategy, DSS Suite are either trademarks or registered trademarks of MicroStrategy Incorporated in the United States and certain other countries. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.