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AtScale Adaptive Analytics (A3) vs MicroStrategy comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Cognos
Sponsored
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (4th)
AtScale Adaptive Analytics ...
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
38th
Average Rating
5.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Data Virtualization (4th), Data Governance (34th), BI on Hadoop (3rd)
MicroStrategy
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
159
Ranking in other categories
Embedded BI (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos is 3.8%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AtScale Adaptive Analytics (A3) is 0.3%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MicroStrategy is 3.5%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Larrad Salgado - PeerSpot reviewer
Jul 27, 2022
Improved the quality of our KPIs, while reducing calls to the IT department
I don't like that when we use Colab packages, we get less functionality. For example, you can make groups of data with Excel or with the data sets from the packages, but when you use the Colab packages directly, you can only group the data when you analyze it with Analysis Studio. I think Cognos needs to improve more on this functionality. The user experience is also very important. Cognos is not very easy to understand sometimes, especially when they change the layout but keep the functionality the same. The help is not very graphic and they have no examples. Cognos has to make a big effort to help with understanding the functionality by improving the documentation. There is a lot of documentation, but the examples are hard to find and they should make their help section easier to understand for non-technical users.
it_user822762 - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 20, 2018
The GUI interface is nice and easy to use, but the organization of the icons is not saved across users
Connecting to a Hadoop database to create a cube to connect to Tableau. We want to be able to easily create cubes which can be connected to Tableau for visualization The product had many issues. We had great collaboration with the product development team, but the product was not able to meet our…
Pietro Saglietti - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 26, 2023
A robust solution for powerful data analytics
I use its Discovery Analytics feature, particularly in the context of KPI analysis for management It plays a vital role in establishing a connection with predictive continuous improvement. This approach proves highly valuable for teams involved in continuous improvement efforts, especially in…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"A positive feature is Report Studio, where we create beautiful, complex reports."
"When it comes to decision-making, the product is very useful and used in many departments since a lot of people prefer the reports to be generated by IBM Cognos."
"The initial setup is very straightforward."
"The correlation analysis is excellent. It's one of the best that I have used to date."
"The three IBM Cognos features I find the most valuable are Dynamic Cubes, PowerPlay, and Watson."
"I have worked on the features like dashboards and stories, and I do like them a lot."
"We use the account statement report. When you use an account in HSBC, you receive various types of accounts, such as the stock market, fixed accounts, credit cards, and business accounts. We can create one consolidated report called CCS support, which includes all these accounts. In that statement, we are consolidating all those accounts."
"It's enabled us to report directly from our main application systems. We're removing islands of data and we're removing inefficiencies, where people or small divisions had their own store of information."
"The GUI interface is nice and easy to use."
"The most valuable feature of MicroStrategy is the ability to make your own cubes and, from those, create viewpoints."
"You can build once and deploy to multiple operating systems. Also, it resizes in the way you want it to​."
"MicroStrategy has powerful data security features, which are crucial these days. For example, when users view data in MicroStrategy, they're only allowed to see a portion based on the permissions. When we evaluated other solutions like Power BI or Tableau, we found the security is very poor. They can't help us secure access to the data."
"Semi-automatic support of implementing date dimensions, including delta to prior year implementation."
"It is always nice to have one solution in a single platform. You can do pretty much everything, instead of having to get a little bit here or a little bit there."
"In terms of functionality, MicroStrategy is alright. It's a solid BI tool and can handle most tasks you'd expect."
"The technical support is quite good."
"The convenience of it. Having it on the mobile, so someone has it right there in their pocket most of the time."
 

Cons

"It could have more options for themes."
"The charts and graphics are weak."
"Tableau and Power BI are faster than Cognos."
"I would like to see is more easy building, movement in the reports, and dashboard functionality within reporting. Overall more simple elements within reports. If the elements are simple then you don't have to render a full page, but you can move separate parts in the page."
"Data modeling needs to be improved. We use the ETL process, and when we get errors, we then need to identify which structural change is required. The error messaging should be better. They should be descriptive rather than semantic."
"The data uploads that we do, such as Excel files, have a lot of restrictions. If we can make it a bit more user-friendly, allowing us to have more flexibility it would be a great help."
"In terms of what could be improved, I would say, monitoring, monitoring, monitoring. Some improvements in monitoring would be helpful. I'd like to see more monitoring of specific reports and fields. The way the auditing is now is very limited, so I'd like to see more of that - of the monitoring."
"The visualization aspect needs to be improved and I believe, this is being resolved in upcoming versions."
"The product was not able to meet our 10 second refresh requirements."
"There was an issue with the incremental aggregation not working as indicated."
"The organization of the icons is not saved across users."
"The product could be improved by adding additional visualization."
"They need to improve on distribution services. There are lack of features which were there earlier with Narrowcast, but they are not there in the distribution services."
"I think they're still lacking on customer service. I think historically, MicroStrategy's customer service was a lot better than it is today."
"They need to do a better job In its ability to allow end users to produce their own reports, metrics, and self-service business intelligence."
"The online community page of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"We're starting to open it up to more and more people to give them the ability and start looking at these things themselves, but it's not the most intuitive system, Enterprise Manager that is, so it's tough. We're trying to bridge the gap between usability and who we let in the system, because you're not going to come in and just pick it up."
"I did not see any additional value of providing one button for installation on the whole platform if it was going to be installed for different servers. You would have to make customization every time. There was no additional value in an installer."
"The learning curve is quite steep."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is averagely priced."
"It is pretty expensive."
"The pricing of this product is meant for medium to large-scale enterprises."
"I don't know the exact cost, but I believe Cognos is quite expensive, especially when it comes to the support consultants and the procedures that need to be applied."
"The solution is affordable."
"There is a standard license required to use this solution. There are some additional tools but I am not sure if they are an extra cost."
"It is quite pricy. I think Microsoft BI is cheaper. Tableau might also be cheaper, but it also depends on the usage. If you have very many users, Cognos can be a problem. It could be cheaper than Tableau but not for so many users. If you have a few thousand users, Tableau, which is generally quite expensive, can be cheaper than Cognos."
"Pricing should be improved."
Information not available
"The pricing for MicroStrategy is always on the higher side. They should seriously start thinking about their pricing and licensing strategy."
"There have been actual direct bottomline impacts in terms of extra revenue created from the reporting solutions."
"The solution’s licensing cost is expensive."
"While initial cost of MicroStrategy is still on the higher side, the long-term benefits brings down overall cost of ownership significantly as compared to other tools like Tableau/Cognos."
"Additional costs are associated with maintenance."
"It would be nice if there was a sticker price that says, "This software costs this amount of money." But I think that's just indicative of all software vendors. A lot of people are in it to make money, commissions, so it's just the nature of the business. But I would like to see more transparency, more equality, on pricing. Some people get better deals than others, I think."
"We have one of the best pricing available, but we can't disclose that information."
"The pricing list itself is not publicly accessible, so it's a bit opaque."
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Comparison Review

it_user6330 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 2, 2013
MicroStrategy vs. Tableau
After a recent presentation, several attendees asked me about the applications of Visual Insights and Tableau. Many companies are investing in both tools and are trying to figure out the right tool for specific applications Tableau has found its sweet-spot as an agile discovery tool that analysts…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
57%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
5%
Government
4%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
10%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
10%
Retailer
8%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Seeking lightweight open source BI software
It depends on the Data architecture and the complexity of your requirement. Some great tools in the market are Qlik ...
What do you like most about IBM Cognos?
The solution's most valuable feature is its ease of use, which makes it easily compatible with other tools.
What needs improvement with IBM Cognos?
I need improvements, particularly with the Framework Manager, which has an outdated user interface from older version...
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Earn 20 points
What do you like most about MicroStrategy?
The stability of the product is good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MicroStrategy?
For larger businesses, I think the pricing is logical, but for smaller companies, it can be a bit costly.
What needs improvement with MicroStrategy?
There is room for improvement in data visualization. Compared to other BI tools like Power BI, MicroStrategy is stron...
 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
AtScale, AtScale Intelligence Platform
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

More than 23,000 leading organizations across multiple industries use Cognos. Some examples of Cognos customers include BMW Financial Services, Quinte Health Care, Troy Corporation, Michigan State University, and GKN Land System.
Rakuten, TD Bank, Aetna, Glaxo-Smith Kline, Biogen, Toyota, Tyson
Allstate Insurance, Barneys New York, Boston Children's Hospital, Buenos Aires Department of the Treasury, Campbell Soup Company, DHL, eBay, eHarmony, Facebook, Four Seasons Hotels Inc., Godiva, Hard Rock International, LinkedIn, Netflix, Pfizer, SECO (Swiss Government Unemployment Agency), Starbucks, Texas A&M University, Thomson Reuters Markets, US House of Representatives, and the US Postal Service.
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