SPL, through its principal MicroStrategy, this week announced a powerful information broadcast server that leverages existing communication channels, including e-mail, fax, pager and mobile phone, to extend access to information to all levels of the enterprise. "DSS Broadcaster`s ability to deliver personalised, actionable analysis helps prevent information overload and allows users to act on information as soon as it is available," comments George Johnson, business unit manager MicroStrategy at SPL. "The implications of this on the way business users view and act of information are significant," says Johnson. "Imagine if inventory falls below a certain level at a particular location and a store manager is automatically paged to restock. Imagine if a CFO could request an email every time the value of his company`s stock dropped more than 10% in a 3 hour timeframe. Imagine if a product manager could request a voice mail every week with the company`s most up-to-date sales information." Michael Saylor, president and CEO of MicroStrategy, says: "With DSS Broadcaster, MicroStrategy is pioneering the development of a new class of technology, the Information Broadcast server, which is capable of delivering sophisticated business analysis to many thousands of users and with much higher quality content than any product currently available." Saylor adds that where many products push out generic messages and images in a variety of formats, DSS Broadcaster delivers analyses that have been dynamically generated from vast volumes of data, based on each user`s preferences and needs. "DSS Broadcaster finds the answers to complex business questions using the most sophisticated DSS technology available, and then ensures that the right person gets this information at the right time. We believe this technology will revolutionise the way business users view and act on information." According to the Aberdeen Group`s director of decision support research, Bob Moran, "DSS Broadcaster is the embodiment of MicroStrategy`s vision to enable anyone, where appropriate, to ask any question, of any database, anywhere in the world. "DSS Broadcaster, which is based on MicroStrategy`s powerful relational on-line analytical processing (ROLAP) engine, actualises that vision with a combination of scalability and analytical capacity." Not to be confused with "push" or "pull" technologies, DSS Broadcaster meets information needs by tailoring content delivery and analyses for the majority of users in an enterprise. DSS Broadcaster`s personalisation engine ensures users receive only the information they need in the format they desire - whether it be in a text email or a faxed spreadsheet of market data. The personalisation engine customises messages for each individual recipient, preventing information overload and ensuring that security requirements are strictly enforced. Using DSS Broadcaster`s self-subscription interface, end users can specify exactly what data they want to see in the format they desire, with choices for scheduled delivery and frequency of business information. The self-subscription interface also allows the application to scale to thousands of users within and beyond the organisation by eliminating most of IT`s burden of distributing data, creating content and maintaining thousands of user profiles. To prevent users from gaining access to restricted information, DSS Broadcaster leverages database and file security features and provides sophisticated application-level security functionality. DSS Broadcaster also allows administrators to publish reports to user communities based upon their specific needs. This feature is important for managing the flow of information throughout the enterprise as organisational structures and analysis needs change. DSS Broadcaster is completely integrated with MicroStrategy`s DSS suite of products, and supports the delivery of information from multiple relational databases, flat files, and software applications. By leveraging the schema support and reporting strengths of MicroStrategy`s ROLAP architecture, data can be stored in a wide variety of relational structures, including star, snowflake and hybrid schemas. This allows users to receive answers to virtually all their business questions, regardless of their complexity. DSS Broadcaster provides an administration console which enables corporations to rapidly implement and fully administer enterprise broadcast deployments. The console provides one central method for managing all users, addresses, schedules, styles, and broadcast services. Based on MicroStrategy`s component-based architecture, DSS Broadcaster`s administrative console provides the high flexibility and ease of maintenance required for broad-based, highly scalable applications of this type. Currently in beta, DSS Broadcaster, which runs on Windows NT Server 4.0, is scheduled for release in Q3 1998.
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