How Can We Help You
Leverage Technology
to Build Your Business?
Active Research Leverages MicroStrategy’s Intelligent E-Business Platform™ to Deliver Innovative Online Market Intelligence Service
Automated Market Research Analyzes Customer Profiles in Real-time Allowing Clients to Have Access to Up to the Minute Market Trend Information
VIENNA, Va. and SAN FRANCISCO, Ca., January 19, 2000 –MicroStrategy® Incorporated (NASDAQ: MSTR), a leading worldwide provider of Intelligent E-Business™ software, and Active Research, a provider of Web-based Market Research Automation services, today announced a partnership resulting in an innovative new kind of market intelligence service. Now organizations can better understand and respond to their customers through sophisticated Web-based analysis and reporting, ultimately resulting in increased profitability. The partnership reflects MicroStrategy’s continued commitment to empower corporations with real-time insight to develop and execute effective e-marketing and e-CRM strategies.
Active Research specializes in continuously measuring shopping preferences and providing clients with up-to-the-minute insights on buyer behavior through the Internet. Data on 400,000 shoppers is collected each month through leading sites such as Disney’s GO Network, Lycos, LookSmart, BizRate.com and Productopia that host buyer’s guides powered by Active Research. The warehoused information is then made available for real-time analysis by the MicroStrategy Intelligence Server™, part of MicroStrategy’s Intelligent E-Business Platform™, through a Web-based research service called Active Research Advisor. MicroStrategy bolsters the services provided to Active Research clients by increasing the strength of the Advisor service’s analytical and reporting capabilities.
“One of the greatest strengths of this partnership is that it combines MicroStrategy’s enterprise-strength tools with our proprietary market forecasting capability,” said Tom DuBois, president and CEO of Active Research. “Typically, business intelligence deals with hard facts such as transactional information. By using MicroStrategy, we are able to analyze consumer preferences in real-time with a high degree of accuracy. Our web-based service delivers unique market insights. Our clients can track market trends, test new product concepts, or position existing products by examining up-to-the-minute shopping data, ultimately attaining higher customer acceptance in the marketplace.”
The partnership helps Active Research offer fully automated, end-to-end market research services through the Internet. Active Research Advisor integrates with MicroStrategy Web™ to create and deliver interactive reports that examine trends in pricing, feature preference, and competition. Reports can be preformatted to isolate analysis parameters such as product, brand, geography, demography, and other market segmentations, and then enable drill down for more in-depth analysis.
Manufacturers, marketers and retailers in fast-moving industries can now better understand and react to ever-changing customer demands. Activities such as sales strategy, new product testing, retail pricing and marketing campaigns will benefit greatly from the timely, relevant insights the combined technology makes possible.
“Understanding customers and interacting with them on their terms is the key to profitability,” said Sanju K. Bansal, chief operating officer of MicroStrategy Incorporated. “This partnership between MicroStrategy and Active Research allows companies to understand and react to what customers want on the Internet. Such knowledge can lead to increased e-commerce transactions, and more importantly, lead to satisfied customers who will return to do business again.”
About Active Research
Active Research provides Web-based Market Research Automation services to help businesses attract and understand buyers. The company is the first to offer real-time market intelligence services that enable product manufacturers and retailers to understand and respond to changing customer demands. Market intelligence is generated through a network of portal, content and merchant partners who host buyer’s guides powered by Active Research. Complete and unbiased, these buyer’s guides help partners attract and retain customers. Founded in 1997, Active Research is based in San Francisco and on the Web at www.ActiveResearch.com and www.ActiveBuyersGuide.com.
About MicroStrategy Incorporated
MicroStrategy is a leading worldwide provider of Intelligent E-Business™ software and related services. MicroStrategy’s product line enables both proactive and interactive delivery of information from large-scale databases, providing Global 2000 enterprises a platform for developing solutions that deliver insight and intelligence to their enterprise, supply-chain, and customers.
MicroStrategy’s 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 platform delivers critical business information 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’s platform is ideal for developing e-business solutions that are personalized and proactive, and that reach millions of users. MicroStrategy also offers a comprehensive set of consulting, training and support services for its customers and partners.
MicroStrategy has over 840 customers across such diverse industries as retail, telecommunications, finance, insurance, healthcare, pharmaceuticals and consumer packaged goods. Representative MicroStrategy customers include American Express Travel Services, CVS Pharmacy, Harris Teeter, IMS America, Kmart, MCI WorldCom, Merck-Medco, Nike, NetRadio and Ralston Purina. MicroStrategy has also entered into relationships with more than 210 systems integration, application development and platform partners, including Accrue, Exchange Applications, HNC Software, IBM, NCR, and Oracle.
For more information, please visit MicroStrategy’s Web site: http://www.microstrategy.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 Intelligence Server, Intelligent E-Business, Intelligent E-Business Platform, MicroStrategy Web 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.