FAQs - MicroStrategy

1. What is MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server?
MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server is a software product that monitors and delivers individualized information to users via email, web portals, and wireless devices such as PDAs, pagers, and phones. Through a easy-to-use web page, users specify what information they want, when and how they want to receive it.

2. What are the business benefits of MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server?
MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server provides an easy and inexpensive way to send corporate information to untrained employees, partners, and customers. As a result, decision-makers have the information they need to maximize revenue generation and streamline business processes that cut operating costs.

3. What kinds of applications can MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server support?
MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server supports: enterprise reporting applications, executive information portals, corporate information dissemination, sale force automation, working capital management, supply chain management, extranet portals, secure business to business portals, customer service applications, and intelligent alerting applications.

4. Why do businesses need to send information out to users proactively?
People do not have time to search through information to identify information that requires immediate action. An intelligent alerting system understands and constantly monitors the information users need, and delivers information only when users need it. Users save time and take action when required.

5. How do current MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server customers use Intelligent Alerting?
Customers use MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server to deliver inventory alerts, business performance alerts, supply chain alerts, customer activity alerts, stock and personal finance alerts, last minute travel alerts, data load alerts, customer account activity alerts, and fraud alerts. New uses are constantly being developed for intelligent alerting.

6. How do users receive only information that they want?
Through an easy-to-use subscription web page, users specify what information they want. Some personalization options include the language choices and specific information criteria such as certain products. Using this user profile, MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server sends only the information that the user has requested.

7. Can users turn off the information delivery?
Yes, users can switch on and off their own information delivery. Administrators can also set up some ‘non-optional’ information delivery so that everyone receives the information. As a result, users can obtain information without having to wait for IT to develop the reports.

8. What kinds of information can users receive?
Users can receive both tables and charts from the MicroStrategy platform, and content from current information sources such as transaction processing systems, Enterprise Resource Planning systems, databases, XML files, and web servers.

9. What formatting can be applied to the information that is sent out by MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server?
Information can be formatted into HTML, plain text, Microsoft® Excel, or PDF files. The size and display of these files are adjusted to suit the email type or the wireless device for different users.

10. To which devices can MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server deliver information?
Narrowcast Server can deliver information to email, mobile phones, pagers, faxes, PDAs, intranet and extranet web portals. Businesses can also build and plug in their own Information Transmission Module to support their own devices.

11. How does the MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server support enterprise wide mission critical applications?
MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server's world-class clustering and fail-over ensures support for mission-critical 24x7 systems. Rigorous in-house testing has proven that Narrowcast Server can personalize and deliver millions of messages a day. The system tracks fail-over down to each message.

12. What are the Hardware requirements for MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server?
The following minimum hardware requirements are recommended for installing all Narrowcast Server components on one machine:

Requirement	Minimum Recommended
Processor	300MHz Pentium or equivalent
Memory	512MB RAM
Storage	1GB Free disk space

13. What are certified system configurations for MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server?
MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server is certified to run on Windows NT 4.0 and higher, and Windows 2000 SP1 and SP2.

14. What languages does MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server support?
The following languages are supported by MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server: English (US), Spanish, German, French, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Swedish, Portuguese (Brazilian). MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server also allows organizations to quickly add support for other languages.

15. What web browsers will work with the MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server?

16. Can MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server functionality be incorporated into other applications?
MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server can be integrated into any application in order to incorporate proactive information delivery functionality. Through a Software Development Kit that includes sample code, businesses can easily add new information sources, file formats, devices and email types.

17. How long does it take to set up MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server?
MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server installs in minutes, and automatically presents a wizard to help administrators through the setup. Within an hour, the installation and setup are completed.