Hi there
I have been told to evaluate Proclarity and Microstrategy for our soon to
start BI initiative. Can anyone help me do a comparsion of these tools or
even a critical evaluation of any one or both of these. Please reply asap if
you have the information.
Thanks.

As with all such questions, it all depends on the business needs and the
application. And remember that MicroStrategy is a complete product
stack, whereas ProClarity is just the top layer of a Microsoft Analysis
Services app.

This means that if you choose MicroStrategy, you'll be restricted to
MicroStrategy tools for each component. They're good, but very
expensive, and of course only work in ROLAP mode (ie, very large
capacity, but complex and slow). With Analysis Services, you have a
choice of over 20 decent client tools, of which ProClarity is just one.
You don't have to use only a single front-end tool, so you could use
ProClarity and other front-ends all in the same app, if that's what
works best for the users.

"Salman Mir" <farazahmed100 (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote

Keep in mind that Proclarity or Panorama would be used with Analysis
Services as the OLAP cube server, whereas Microstrategy has its own
ROLAP server - ref. OLAP Reports:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e...Qo8ZFMEHA.3012
%40tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl
Cognos and MicroStrategy offer full client, server and Web capabilities.
Depending on your needs, they may or may not offer you more than
Analysis Services + one or more good client tools, but they will
certainly cost you a lot more. In the OLAP area, PowerPlay isn't really
any more functional than Analysis Services, and in some ways is less
functional. It's also less scalable. Of course, Cognos also offers
separate planning products that are better than Analysis Services for
such apps.

Nigel Pendse
http://www.olapreport.com

- Deepak

*** Sent via Developersdex http://www.developersdex.com ***
Don't just participate in USENET...get rewarded for it!

For the record, ProClarity does provide bubble up exceptions as of the
latest version. I've been using it for more than 2 yrs and find it to be a
good product with decent support.

"Jamie" <Jamie (AT) discussions (DOT) microsoft.com> wrote

matter of taste which is preferable. Panorama has soe nice features that
ProClarity doesn't (e.g. Bubble up exceptions)