Best Buy Wins TDWI "Performance Management" Category

MicroStrategy Incorporated, a leading worldwide provider of business intelligence software, announced that the company and its customer, Best Buy Co Inc, won The Data Warehousing Institute's (TDWI) prestigious Best Practices in Data Warehousing Award in the category Performance Management. Best Buy won the award for its MicroStrategy-based Business and Vendor Performance Application, which provides Web-based query and reporting capabilities to more than 2,500 corporate and retail managers, as well as external partners. TDWI's Best Practices Awards will be presented to the winners at TDWI's Summer World Conference and Best Practices Summit in Anaheim, Calif., from August 12-17, 2001.

Best Buy needed an integrated business intelligence system that would provide both internal users and external partners and supply chain members with visibility into its business performance. Using MicroStrategy Web, Best Buy's Business and Vendor Performance Application allows its users to view performance data, perform trending analysis on sales, inventory, advertising, pricing and all forms of financial metrics -- like revenue and operating margin -- via a single, simple Web interface. By enabling Best Buy to quickly identify and remedy problem areas, the application facilitates increased efficiency in Best Buy's overall business process.

"We are pleased to have provided the platform for Best Buy's award-winning application," said Sanju K. Bansal, chief operating officer of MicroStrategy Incorporated. "Companies continue to turn to MicroStrategy business intelligence -- a single platform for analysis and report delivery that can be used across the enterprise and supply chain -- to optimize their business processes and drive efficiency. Best Buy's scalable, Web-based performance management solution is a model for other organizations to follow."

"We are delighted to have been selected as a winner of TDWI's prestigious Best Practices in Data Warehousing Award in Performance Management category for the success of our exceptional business intelligence application," said Clark Becker, senior vice president and chief technology officer for Best Buy. "With our MicroStrategy-based Business and Vendor Performance Management application, we are able to meet our objectives of equipping both our internal and external users with consistent and accurate information via a single, Web-based interface, while reducing costs."

TDWI's 2001 Best Practices in Data Warehousing Awards competition provides thousands of practitioners with best practices they can follow as data warehousing and business intelligence continues to grow and expand. The winners clearly demonstrated that their data warehouse and business intelligence projects were truly innovative solutions to problems commonly faced by data warehousing practitioners and were practices that could be followed by others.

"The competition for the Best Practices Awards was exceptionally strong this year," says Ellen Hobbs, General Manager of TDWI. "As always, the quality of the applications was first rate, but several nominations distinguished themselves as true best practices that others can learn from and utilize in their own data warehousing and business intelligence implementations."

About The Data Warehousing Institute

The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI), a division of 101communications, is the premier provider of in-depth, high quality education and training in the data warehousing and business intelligence industry. TDWI is dedicated to educating business and information technology professionals about the strategies, techniques, and tools required to successfully design, build, and maintain data warehousing implementations, and also to the advancement of data warehousing research, knowledge transfer, and the professional development of its Members. TDWI sponsors and promotes a worldwide membership program, annual educational conferences, regional educational seminars, onsite courses, solution provider partnerships, awards programs for the best practices in data warehousing and innovative technologies, resourceful publications, an in-depth research program, and a comprehensive Web site.

About Best Buy Co Inc

Minneapolis-based Best Buy Co Inc is a number one specialty retailer of consumer electronics, personal computers, entertainment software and appliances. The Company operates retail stores and commercial Web sites under the names: Best Buy, BestBuy.com, Magnolia Hi-Fi, MagnoliaHiFi.com, Media Play, MediaPlay.com, On Cue, OnCue.com, Sam Goody, SamGoody.com, and Suncoast, Suncoast.com. The Company reaches consumers through more than 1,700 retail stores nationwide, in Puerto Rico and in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

About MicroStrategy Incorporated

MicroStrategy is a leading provider of business intelligence software for Global 5000 organizations. Since 1990, the company has specialized in helping businesses transform their extensive operational data into actionable information. MicroStrategy's business intelligence platform gives organizations solutions to all of their query, reporting, and advanced analytical needs, and distributes insight to users via Web, wireless, and voice.

MicroStrategy 7, the company's scalable business intelligence platform, is built specifically for the Internet. Its pure-Web architecture provides Web reporting, security, performance and standards that are critical for deployment over the Web. Within intranets, the company's products provide employees with information to make better business decisions. In extranets, extended enterprises use MicroStrategy 7 to build stronger relationships by linking customers and suppliers via the Internet.

MicroStrategy has approximately 1,100 enterprise-class customers including Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse, AT&T Wireless Group, First Union Corporation and GlaxoSmithKline. MicroStrategy also has relationships with over 200 systems integrators, application development, and platform partners, including IBM, PeopleSoft, Compaq, Informatica, and JD Edwards. For more information on the company, or to purchase or demo MicroStrategy's software, please visit MicroStrategy's Web site at www.microstrategy.com.

Contact Alka Nayyar of MicroStrategy Incorporated, 703-848-8600, pr_info@microstrategy.com.