“Our 35 years of business analytics leadership is the SAS^® Business Intelligence advantage,” said Jim Davis, SAS Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer. “SAS’ depth of expertise in advanced analytics and focus on solving real problems help customers derive value from SAS BI far beyond other offerings.”

SAS Enterprise BI Server supports large, complex data sources – a requirement as enterprises accumulate more and more information as part of the current big data trend. Davis noted that data alone, however, has no value until organizations can explore, analyze and act on it – and then its value is limitless.

Organizations deploying SAS BI often access and draw value from unstructured data sources such as textual data on the Internet. Data mining the wealth of unstructured or structured data available from both external and internal sources yields a potentially rich decision-making asset, Davis said.

Enterprises are increasingly investing in BI and analytics to stay ahead of the competition. To help customers make the most of this business edge, SAS has formed close relationships with key companies, including services giant Accenture and database appliance vendors Teradata and EMC. Additionally, SAS Data Management technology pulls information from most major data sources found in corporate environments.

“For enterprises seeking broad and powerful technology and the industry resources to make it work, SAS delivers,” Davis added. ”Our BI, analytics, information management and application solutions pull it all together.”

¹ Gartner Inc., Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms. John Hagerty, Rita Sallam, James Richardson, February 7, 2012

About Gartner’s Magic Quadrant

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About SAS

SAS is the leader in business analytics software and services, and the largest independent vendor in the business intelligence market. Through innovative solutions, SAS helps customers at more than 55,000 sites improve performance and deliver value by making better decisions faster. Since 1976 SAS has been giving customers around the world THE POWER TO KNOW^®.

According to Gartner, “In 2011, business users continued to exert significant influence over BI decisions, often choosing data discovery products in addition to/as alternatives to traditional BI tools.” They explain that “In 2011, the BI platform market expansion was influenced by significant increases in demand from a wide array of ‘users’: line workers, business analysts, advanced analytic professionals, business executives, customers/constituents, partners, regulators, and IT professionals. … This expansion is not a temporary aberration, but a sea change for the business analytics marketplace, and by extension for the BI platform market.”

“We’re thrilled to be an early pioneer and catalyst to this sea change in the industry that Gartner describes,” said Lars Björk, QlikTech’s chief executive officer. “Continued momentum has solidified this trend toward user-driven business intelligence, which we define as Business Discovery. As a leader in the space, we believe QlikTech is well positioned to grow this market and continue to be recognized as an industry leader. We’re excited to see the whole category continue to thrive.”

QlikTech has disrupted the BI industry by empowering all business users with interactive data analysis instead of static reports. The company is now leading the Social BI trend that leverages the power of the collaborative decision making for a group, organization, or department to accelerate better decisions with greater alignment and transparency.

In the fall of 2011, the company announced QlikView 11, introducing social decision-making on its self-service BI platform to help business users collaborate to make more insightful decisions. With this release, QlikTech expanded its vision to include all the ways people make decisions every day – with relevant data, on location, and with teams. Business users are further empowered with new collaborative and mobile capabilities, and IT managers will appreciate the unified management functionality that allows them to keep control and governance at the core while pushing usage out to the edges of the organization.

About the Magic Quadrant

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

* Gartner “Magic Quadrants for Business Intelligence Platforms” by John Hagerty, Rita L. Sallam, James Richardson, February 6, 2012.

About QlikTech

QlikTech (NASDAQ: QLIK) is a leader in Business Discovery—user-driven Business Intelligence (BI). QlikTech’s powerful, accessible Business Discovery solution bridges the gap between traditional business intelligence solutions and standalone office productivity applications. Its QlikView Business Discovery platform enables intuitive user-driven analysis that can be implemented in days or weeks rather than months, years, or not at all. The in-memory associative search technology it pioneered allows users to explore information freely rather than being confined to a predefined path of questions. QlikView Business Discovery works with existing BI applications and adds new capabilities: insight for everyone, zero-wait analysis, mobility, an app–like model, remixability and reassembly, and a social and collaborative experience. Headquartered in Radnor, Pennsylvania, QlikTech has offices around the world serving approximately 22,000 customers in over 100 countries.

The 1010data Big Data Warehouse enables analysts and programmers to work directly with data in its raw and truest form while enjoying an advanced spreadsheet-like experience. Since the warehouse is cloud-based, it enables customers to store, share and monetize Big Data in a simple, self-explanatory fashion. With over 200 blue-chip customers in the retail, consumer packaged goods, finance, healthcare and telecom verticals, 1010data’s unique data warehouse demonstrates that there is a successful alternative approach to big data analytics.

“At 1010data our mission was to radically improve the data warehouse and provide companies with a faster, easier to use and more scalable option for big data analytics,” said Sandy Steier, CEO of 1010data. “Our solution allows direct, interactive access to raw source data, enabling users to perform complex analysis in minutes, drastically outperforming all alternatives. We believe it is fitting that we are in the ‘Challengers’ quadrant.”

1010data’s position in the Magic Quadrant was determined by Gartner’s analysis of how vendors measure against criteria, including completeness of vision and ability to execute within the data warehouse industry.

*Gartner, Inc., Magic Quadrant for Data Warehouse Database Management Systems, Mark A. Beyer, et al, February 6, 2012.

About the Magic Quadrant
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About 1010data
1010data is the first interactive cloud-based platform for Big Data analytics, helping customers in financial services, retail, consumer packaged goods, telecommunications and other industries manage, manipulate and monetize trillions of business data records every day. With 1010data’s on-line service, customers quickly gain incomparable insights from any amount of raw data without the need for hardware or software investments, as well as complex, time consuming data design, integration, or transformation steps commonly associated with other big data and analytical products. Please visit www.1010data.com for more information.

To learn more please visit: www.1010data.com.

Information Builders’ WebFOCUS platform provides users with access to rich data and analytical capabilities through features such as dashboards, portable analytics, and ad hoc reporting. Because of the platform’s intuitive design, even non-technical users, such as operational employees, can enjoy the same level of data analysis and advanced reporting as their counterparts in IT. The solution is increasingly used by Information Builders’ customers to extend data analysis outside of the enterprise, enabling these organizations to boost loyalty and customer satisfaction by putting valuable data in the hands of end users. WebFOCUS’ robust solutions are available via the mobile platform, allowing users to receive and manipulate reports on their smartphone or tablet of choice. The solution is also integrated with Information Builders’ iWay Information Management platform, which adds real-time data profiling, data quality management (DQM), and master data management (MDM) capabilities into the solution set.

According to the report, “In 2011, the BI platform market expansion was influenced by significant increases in demand from a wide array of users: line workers, business analysts, advanced analytic professionals, business executives, customers/constituents, partners, regulators, and IT professionals. Each user type, along with their associated use cases, brought lots of variety to BI, well beyond the core query, reporting, and analysis capabilities BI platforms have long been known for.”

“Business intelligence is increasingly recognized for the value it brings not just to the IT team, but also to operational employees, external customers, and stakeholders alike,” said Gerald Cohen, president and CEO of Information Builders. “As this usage becomes more pervasive, we’re honored to be placed as a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant. We believe this recognition is a testament to WebFOCUS’ intuitive, flexible nature and ability to deliver rich, customizable insights to every user, regardless of their level of technical expertise.”

To access the “Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms” in its entirety please visit: informationbuilders.com/go/GartnerBI12.

About the Magic Quadrant
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product, or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About Information Builders
Information Builders provides software and services that bring smarter decision-making and streamlined processes to leading organizations in business, government, and education worldwide. The company’s software is installed in tens of thousands of locations, servicing millions of users. Its WebFOCUS business intelligence (BI) platform delivers massively scalable information applications, analytics, and customer-facing portals to the new generation of information users to deliver game-changing business results. Its iWay Software integration platform allows enterprises to leverage all of their information resources to streamline internal and business-to-business processes while escalating the overall accessibility and integrity of information regardless of environmental complexity. Headquartered in New York City with 60 offices worldwide, the company employs 1,350 people and has established significant industry partnerships. Visit Information Builders at informationbuilders.com. For ongoing news, go to informationbuilders.com/new or follow Information Builders at @infobldrs.

• Provides company with the planned end result of the BI project
• Lists future opportunities to build upon the solution and highlights business process improvements
• Estimates the effort required to complete each of the tasks identified in the Blueprint

“Our approach to your BI project always begins with a discovery session in which we define the required key performance indicators, or KPIs, with the stakeholders in your organization,” says Michael Marriage, Principal Architect and Strategist for the BravePoint BI Blueprint team.  “We are looking to uncover opportunities that will be the most beneficial to the organization.  An opportunity may come in the form of a key performance indicator, an automation initiative, or even a business process improvement effort. We believe this value-added, customized approach sets us apart from other BI providers, and we are thrilled to announce our solution here at the Vegas TDWI event.”

“Business Intelligence that is unique and customized for an individual organization can be a challenging and complex undertaking,” says BravePoint Vice President of Sales, Sean Garguilo.  “There have been applications on the market for decades that provide a one size fits all approach to this process, but ours is one of the first to provide a technology agnostic, collaborative, problem solving approach to address both present and future BI needs.”

This approach makes it easy for companies to identify the KPIs that will be most meaningful to their increased efficiency and business process improvement.  The process achieves the buy-in of key stakeholders of the organization from day one and provides the entire team with a no surprises path of information as the process moves forward.

The BravePoint BI BluePrint provides:

• A clear cut objective of your BI project based upon needs identified during the discovery process
• A recommended best practice approach to achieve the objectives and avoid pitfalls
• A list of identified enhancements to achieve future BI needs
• Identification of business process improvements that can be addressed
• An estimation of the work required to complete each task identified in the BI Blueprint

“The BravePoint BI BluePrint approach is the result of 20+ years of expertise and experience of some of the best BI architects and business process analysts in the business,” added Mr. Garguilo.  “We believe such an approach is needed in the BI space and we look forward to helping our clients implement customized, smart BI solutions to gain a competitive advantage and a quick return on investment.”

About BravePoint
Headquartered in Norcross, Georgia, BravePoint®, Inc. is a leading provider of consulting, training, and application development to a variety of clients worldwide. Since 1987, BravePoint has applied business experience and technology expertise to improve customers’ profitability and competitiveness with the use of technology.

BravePoint is a subsidiary of Chesapeake Utilities Corporation (NYSE: CPK). For more information about BravePoint, please visit www.bravepoint.com.  All third party trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Chesapeake Utilities Corporation is a diversified utility company engaged in natural gas distribution, transmission and marketing, electric distribution, propane gas distribution and wholesale marketing, advanced information services and other related services. Information about Chesapeake’s businesses is available at www.chpk.com.

This annual report presents a global view of Gartner’s opinion of the main software vendors that should be considered by organizations seeking to use business intelligence (BI) platforms to develop BI applications. To be included in the Magic Quadrant, software vendors had to meet specific inclusion criteria, including at least $15 million in BI-related software license revenue annually, must deliver at least nine out of 13 BI capabilities as defined by Gartner and obtain a minimum of 20 customer survey responses that use the vendor platform as their enterprise BI platform. This year’s Magic Quadrant customer survey included vendor-provided references, as well as survey responses from BI users in Gartner’s BI summit and inquiry lists.

“We consider our placement by Gartner into the BI Platform MQ confirmation of our mission to enable customers to unlock the power of information to improve business performance,” said Dean Stoecker, CEO of Alteryx.  “We continue to innovate while we execute on our product roadmap. With the upcoming launch of Alteryx 7.0 at our annual user conference, INSPIRE, we are poised to deliver a truly revolutionary product that will change the face of BI & Analytics while continuing to enhance our market position.”

Alteryx is dedicated to creating business intelligence technology that lets users easily invent smart and extensible software applications to solve data analysis problems and make decisions. Alteryx seeks to inspire ingenuity in its customers and associates by bringing freedom, flexibility and creativity to insightful data management tools.

Founded in 1997 with a strong foundation of data integration and advanced analytic capabilities, Alteryx today specializes in delivering a business analytic platform to develop geographic-based applications with significant external content input to enrich business decision making.  A strong network of partners often develop their own applications using the Alteryx platform for sale to specific regional and/or industry segments. Alteryx rapidly and seamlessly integrates into complex IT environments and provides deeper and more actionable business insights for users across the enterprise.

“The core of what I think about every day is how we can improve the experience of Data Artisans,” said George Mathew, President and COO of Alteryx. “Alteryx Strategic Analytics is a ‘Desktop-to-Cloud’ solution in service of the Data Artisan. We consider our position in Gartner’s BI Magic Quadrant confirmation that we are sitting at the precipice of significant changes to increase effective business strategies.”

*Gartner, Inc., Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms, John Hagerty, et al, February 6, 2012.

About Alteryx

Alteryx provides indispensable analytic solutions for enterprise and SMB companies making critical decisions about how to expand and grow. Our product, Alteryx Strategic Analytics, is a desktop-to-cloud Agile BI and analytics solution designed for data artisans and business leaders that brings together the market knowledge, location insight, and business intelligence today’s organizations require. For more than a decade, Alteryx has enabled strategic planning executives to identify and seize market opportunities, outsmart their competitors, and drive more revenue. Customers like Experian Marketing Services and McDonald’s rely on Alteryx daily for their most important decisions. Headquartered in Irvine, California, and with offices in Boulder and San Francisco, Alteryx empowers 250+ customers and 200,000+ users worldwide. Get inspired today at www.alteryx.com or call 1-888-836-4274.

About the Magic Quadrant

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

According to Gartner, “Organizations continue to turn to BI as a vital tool for smarter, more agile, and efficient business.” Gartner describes Leaders as “vendors that are reasonably strong in the breadth and depth of their BI platform capabilities, and can deliver on enterprise-wide implementations that support a broad BI strategy. Leaders articulate a business proposition that resonates with buyers, supported by the viability and operational capability to deliver on a global basis.”

A copy of the Gartner report is available, compliments of MicroStrategy, at http://www.microstrategy.com/Gartner.

In 2011, MicroStrategy continued to provide sophisticated BI platform capabilities and delivered numerous technology innovations.

MicroStrategy Empowers Business Users with Visual Insight
MicroStrategy enhanced ease-of-use by introducing a new data discovery feature, Visual Insight, that enables business users to explore data and spot trends, minimizing the need for IT to create reports and dashboards. With Visual Insight, business people have the power to control the process and get answers to questions quickly and easily.

MicroStrategy Mobile Provides Extensive Feature Set for Mobile BI
Organizations continued to adopt MicroStrategy’s mobile BI platform to measure performance, monitor significant trends and take business action using their iOS and Android mobile devices. MicroStrategy’s mobile customers include such leading brands as GUESS?, Inc., Whole Foods Market, Herbalife, MetLife, Edmunds.com, eHarmony, and Sonic Automotive.

MicroStrategy Transaction Services Accelerates Business Speed and Productivity
MicroStrategy Transaction Services helps companies accelerate the speed and productivity of their businesses by enabling mobile apps that connect to transactional systems and databases. Introduced in July 2011, MicroStrategy Transaction Services allows mobile apps and web-based dashboards to include action-taking features, including submitting orders, one-click approvals and denials, taking notes for tracking and directing business activity, and writing information back to data sources.

MicroStrategy Delivers on Big Data
Via continued investments in ‘big data’ technology, MicroStrategy enables organizations to easily reveal business insights hidden in their large, highly complex data sets.  In 2011, MicroStrategy enhanced its in-memory technology to provide improved scale and performance for large user populations.  Also, in October 2011, the Company partnered with Cloudera to introduce a Hadoop connector so that organizations can quickly and easily perform analytics on structured or unstructured data stored in Hadoop.

MicroStrategy Launches Major Initiative in the Cloud
In July 2011, MicroStrategy introduced MicroStrategy Cloud, a cloud-based platform-as-a-service. MicroStrategy Cloud enables rapid, cost-effective development of business intelligence and mobile and social apps. Compared to traditional on-premises BI approaches, MicroStrategy Cloud is faster to deploy, delivers better performance, and offers significant financial advantages. MicroStrategy Cloud is powerful and flexible enough to support the full range of cloud use cases, from fast, tactical BI solutions, to the largest implementations where performance and scalability are imperative. Unlike general-purpose cloud solutions, MicroStrategy Cloud is architected and optimized for large data volumes, high concurrency, and high performance. MicroStrategy Cloud includes the entire MicroStrategy BI platform technology for reporting and analysis, enabling users to tap into enterprise data from their desktop or mobile device, improving insight and business decision-making.

MicroStrategy Extends its BI Expertise and Analytics into Social Media
MicroStrategy entered the market for social software with several products aimed at capitalizing on the growing market of Facebook-compatible applications.  MicroStrategy’s social intelligence offerings fall into two categories: Enterprise Social Intelligence and Consumer Social Intelligence.  These products can be used in different combinations by organizations worldwide to harness the power of Facebook data.

Enterprise Social Intelligence Products

• MicroStrategy Gateway for Facebook.  Released in July 2011, MicroStrategy Gateway for Facebook provides high capacity connectivity between enterprise IT environments and Facebook’s social graph using Facebook’s open APIs.
• MicroStrategy Wisdom.  Released in December 2011, MicroStrategy Wisdom is an analytic application built on MicroStrategy’s BI platform which owners of Facebook-compatible applications can use to segment and analyze their Facebook application user populations.
• MicroStrategy Alert.  Released in July 2011, MicroStrategy Alert is a Facebook-compatible application for marketing and e-commerce. It helps companies and brands extend the effectiveness of their Facebook pages.

Consumer Social Intelligence Products

• Emma. Released in July 2011, Emma is a Facebook-compatible consumer application that provides an electronic marketplace for goods, services, and social activities.
• Usher. Released in November 2011, Usher is a Facebook-compatible consumer application that allows users to set up and manage Facebook events.
• Wisdom for Facebook. Released in April 2011, Wisdom for Facebook is a consumer application that allows users to view and analyze the demographics and interests (Facebook Likes) of the entire Wisdom network or of just their own personal friend network.
• Alert for Facebook. Released in July 2011, Alert for Facebook is a Facebook-compatible consumer application that is a convenient mobile Facebook Page reader.

“Our leadership position in the Magic Quadrant is a testament to our commitment to R&D and underscores our pioneering work in developing powerful technologies that capitalize on Big Data, Mobile, Social, and Cloud trends,” said Sanju Bansal, MicroStrategy Chief Operating Officer.

(1) Gartner “Magic Quadrants for Business Intelligence Platforms” by John Hagerty, Rita L. Sallam, James Richardson, February 6, 2012.

About the Magic Quadrant
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product, or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About MicroStrategy
Founded in 1989, MicroStrategy is a leading provider of enterprise software platforms for business intelligence (BI), mobile intelligence, and social intelligence applications.  MicroStrategy’s BI platform enables leading organizations worldwide to analyze the vast amounts of data stored across their enterprises to make better business decisions.  Companies choose MicroStrategy BI for its ease-of-use, sophisticated analytics, and superior data and user scalability.  MicroStrategy’s mobile intelligence platform helps companies and organizations build, deploy, and maintain mobile apps across a range of solutions by embedding intelligence, transactions, and multimedia into apps.  MicroStrategy’s social intelligence platform includes a number of applications that help enterprises harness the power of social networks for marketing and e-commerce, as well as a suite of free consumer apps that use MicroStrategy’s enterprise technologies.  The MicroStrategy Cloud offering combines MicroStrategy and third-party software, hardware, and services to enable rapid, cost-effective development of hosted BI, mobile, and social applications.  To learn more about MicroStrategy (Nasdaq: MSTR), visit www.microstrategy.com and follow us on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/microstrategy) and Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/microstrategy).

MicroStrategy, MicroStrategy Business Intelligence Platform, MicroStrategy Cloud, MicroStrategy Mobile, Cloud Personal, MicroStrategy Transaction Services,MicroStrategy Gateway for Facebook, MicroStrategy Wisdom, MicroStrategy Alert, Emma, Usher, Wisdom for Facebook, and Alert for Facebook 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.

Collective[i] is a SaaS solution designed to leverage Big Data resources, providing collaborative analysis and decision-making support to marketing and business executives.  Just as Salesforce.com provided a network to manage sales operations, or as Facebook did with personal relationships, Collective[i] hosts the industry’s first “knowledge network,” automating the work associated with analyzing Big Data and socializing knowledge and discussion throughout an enterprise.  Collective[i] delivers analyses for immediate use by any public or private enterprise, while avoiding the lengthy and costly development efforts required with home-grown or enterprise business intelligence systems, such as those created by SAP or IBM.

Collective[i] was founded by Heidi Messer, Stephen Messer and Tad Martin, marketing veterans with track records of successful technology innovation. The Messers founded LinkShare Corporation, where they pioneered the fields of affiliate and performance-based online marketing, operating the company until its sale in 2005 for $425 million to Rakuten.  Mr. Martin was one of the first senior executives at online retailer Overstock.com; as head of operations he oversaw the company’s growth from $70 million in revenue to an $800 million NASDAQ-listed company.

Collective[i] analyses put business information into context to uncover why things happened in the past with an eye toward what will happen in the future. Because Collective[i] standardizes and unifies data from existing tools, it can easily integrate macroeconomic information including weather, unemployment and consumer confidence with company-specific data collected across traditional and digital media channels to produce enterprise quality business intelligence. Furthermore, Collective[i]‘s standardized data model also supports business partnerships among different companies by enabling a seamless exchange of knowledge.

By streamlining the process of analyzing massive data sets and collaborating around analyses to create knowledge, business leaders can devote their time and energy to developing and executing a winning strategy.  “Creativity and innovation have suffered due to the time spent manually analyzing enormous quantities of data.  Prior to Collective[i], the challenge for executives was putting data into a usable form,” said Heidi Messer, Chairman of Collective[i].  “Collective[i] takes a new approach completely focused on converting data into knowledge so that business and marketing executives can focus on execution instead of data management.”

About Collective[i]™

Collective[i] (www.collectivei.com) enables businesses around the world to transform raw data into knowledge.  Collective[i] is host to a global knowledge network where data analysis and collaboration inform execution and strategy.