MicroStrategy is an American OLAP software company.
It was founded in 1989 by Michael Saylor, who was its CEO until 2022.
MicroStrategy’s first major customer was McDonald’s in 1992.
In 2010, the company developed Business Intelligence software for smartphones.
Since 2020, the company has actively invested in Bitcoin.
MicroStrategy is a company that offers data analysis software to other companies. In recent years it has captured global attention for being the first North American company to adopt bitcoin (BTC) as an investmentan aspect that has been key to its growth in market value. All this thanks to the leadership of Michael Saylor, its founder and former CEO, known for being a famous maximalist and Bitcoin evangelist.
The goal of MicroStrategy is to streamline the query of large amounts of data quickly and effectively. It does this through OLAP software, whose acronym in Spanish means “online analytical processing.” Let us remember that large corporations and companies collect information about their users from multiple sources; OLAP allows this data to be grouped and combined into categories and presented in an actionable way, so that companies can then develop strategic planning.
What exactly does Microstrategy do?
MicroStrategy allows its users to create reports using data that has been stored in different sources. By analyzing internal and external data, contributes to making more efficient business decisions. Currently, it integrates artificial intelligence technology to guide companies in making quick and safe decisions. Likewise, it has focused on the development of mobile applications.
Likewise, the solutions offered by MicroStrategy, through OLAP software and other tools, are part of the so-called Business Intelligence or BI, which makes up a set of strategies, products and technologies that seek to manage and create knowledge about companies or organizations. In summary, business intelligence seeks to facilitate business decision-making.
What is the history of Microstrategy?
In 1989, Michael Saylor was able to found MicroStrategy thanks to a consulting contract from DuPontwhich offered him $250,000 in initial capital and offices in Wilmington, Delaware. Later, this project was joined by Sanju Bansalwhom he had met during his studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The idea was to create a company that produced software for data mining and business intelligence using nonlinear mathematicsan idea they picked up from a course on system dynamics theory.
In 1992, the nascent MicroStrategy obtained its first major client: none other than McDonald’s, a company with which it signed a $10 million contract. Likewise, between 1990 and 1996, Saylor’s company managed to increase its revenue by 100% each year.
In 1994, as a result of its growing success, MicroStrategy’s offices and its 50 employees moved to Tysons Corner, a town in Virginia. A couple of years later, the company became a public company thanks to an IPO (initial public offering), which allows a company’s shares to be sold to institutional and retail investors.
Later, in 2000 the company founded Alarm.com, a technology company that offered cloud-based services for alarm monitoring. It is worth noting that Alarm.com was part of MicroStrategy’s research and development unit.
At the end of that same year, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed charges against the company, along with a fraud lawsuit. However, Saylor and Bansal They managed to reach an agreement with the SEC, paying $350,000 in fines each.but without assuming the fault of the charges.
As part of the agreement, MicroStrategy committed to making significant management changes, so they selected an independent director who had to report to the SEC on the company’s new steps.
In 2009, the company decided to sell Alarm.com to ABS Capital Partners, a venture capital firm, for the amount of 27.7 million dollars. At that time, MicroStrategy introduced OLAP services to speed up reporting and queries. A year later, he became involved with developing BI software for mobile platforms, such as the iPad and iPhone.
Two years later, MicroStrategy decided to expand its services with MicroStrategy Cloud, a cloud-based platform. Likewise, from 2015 to 2020 the company released several updates to its product: MicroStrategy 10 and 11, and MicroStrategy 2019 and 2020 respectively.
Finally, In 2022 Michael Saylor resigned as CEO of the companyalthough he remains its executive president. Phong Lee, who had already been president of MicroStrategy, succeeded him. When the transition was announced, Saylor stated that from that moment on he would focus on the bitcoin acquisition for the company, while Phong would take charge of overall corporate operations.
Who owns MicroStrategy?
Although Michael Saylor and Sanju Bansal were the founders of MicroStrategy, the company is currently owned not only by Saylor, but also by BlackRock, an American multinational investment company; to Vanguard Group, the largest investment fund company in the world, and to Invesco, a company for individual investors.
What is Blackrock?
Blackrock is a multinational investment company, which specializes in risk asset management. Currently, it is venturing into the bitcoin market with its own ETF. It is one of the largest financial asset managers globally, operating in up to 30 countries and managing the shares of large corporations such as Coca-Cola, Ferrari and Microsoft.
Now, what do we know about Michael Saylor? Definitely has become one of the most popular characters within the wide world of bitcoin and digital assets. Saylor is an American businessman, known for his charisma and love of work, who has won the hearts of bitcoiners with his interest in promoting the adoption of this cryptocurrency. Michael considers himself a maximalist and is currently almost exclusively dedicated to advocating for the growth of BTC.
What is MicroStrategy’s relationship with Bitcoin?
For some, Michael Saylor’s American company has a double identity: on the one hand, the business provides specialized software and services for companies, but, the other side of the coin is that MicroStrategy since 2020 became a bitcoin accumulator: to achieve this, the company sells debt and then buys the digital asset .
No other company holds as many BTC as MicroStrategy. At the moment, It has 252,220 bitcoinsfor a market value that reaches 15.8 billion dollars. In fact, it is worth noting that many users acquire Microstrategy shares with the aim of having an indirect investment in BTC, just as they do with mining companies.
For many, Saylor’s strategy has been brilliant. From 2024, MicroStrategy shares They have risen more than 500%, and all this as a result of the adoption of bitcoin. Likewise, on Nasdaq, shares reached a peak of approximately $230, growth not seen in years. Although there was a reduction in the profitability of the software business, the company became a “digital gold mine.”
What’s new in Microstrategy?
Today, MicroStrategy continues to innovate and improve its services. Today it offers MicroStrategy ONE, an analysis platform that takes advantage of the potential of AI (artificial intelligence) to perform large-scale analysis without limitations. The new platform introduces new features that improve performance and scalability; Furthermore, it allows its users to create applications in less time.
In other words, the company no longer only focuses on providing reports on data, but, through AI, conducts more in-depth research to understand the behavior and vision of each user.