MICROSTRATEGY Inc - Annual Report: 2004 (Form 10-K)

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UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

FOR ANNUAL AND TRANSITION REPORTS PURSUANT TO SECTIONS 13 OR 15(d) OF THE

SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

x    ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE

SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2004

OR

¨    TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the transition period from                             to                             

Commission File Number 000-24435

MICROSTRATEGY INCORPORATED

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

Registrant’s telephone number, including area code:

(703) 848-8600

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Not applicable

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:

Class A common stock, par value $0.001 per share

Warrants to Purchase Class A Common Stock, par value $0.001 per share

(Title of class)

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant: (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.  Yes  x  No  ¨

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K.  x

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is an accelerated filer (as defined in Exchange Act Rule 12b-2).  Yes  x  No  ¨

The aggregate market value of the voting stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant (based on the last reported sale price of the Registrant’s class A common stock on June 30, 2004 on the Nasdaq National Market) was approximately $534.7 million.

The number of shares of the registrant’s class A common stock and class B common stock outstanding on March 1, 2005 was 12,830,884 and 3,394,399, respectively.

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MICROSTRATEGY INCORPORATED

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CERTAIN DEFINITIONS

All references in this Annual Report on Form 10-K to “MicroStrategy”, “Company”, “we”, “us” and “our” refer to MicroStrategy Incorporated and its consolidated subsidiaries (unless the context otherwise requires).

FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION

This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. For this purpose, any statements contained herein that are not statements of historical fact, including without limitation, certain statements under “Item 1. Business” and “Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and located elsewhere herein regarding industry prospects and our results of operations or financial position, may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Without limiting the foregoing, the words “believes,” “anticipates,” “plans,” “expects,” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. The important factors discussed below under the caption “Risk Factors,” among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by forward-looking statements made herein and presented elsewhere by management from time to time. Such forward-looking statements represent management’s current expectations and are inherently uncertain. Investors are warned that actual results may differ from management’s expectations.

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PART I

Overview

MicroStrategy is a leading worldwide provider of business intelligence software that enables companies to report, analyze and monitor the data stored across their enterprise to reveal the trends and insights needed to make better business decisions. The MicroStrategy mission is to empower every business user to make more informed decisions by providing timely, relevant, and accurate answers to their business questions. To achieve this mission, MicroStrategy’s single, integrated platform is designed to support various styles of business intelligence through an easy-to-use interface. MicroStrategy provides sophisticated analytical performance to every business user in the format that suits them best, from high-level dashboards, to custom reports, to advanced analysis via e-mail, web, fax, wireless and voice communication channels. MicroStrategy engineers its software for reliability, scalability, security, and ease of administration for organizations of all sizes.

Our software platform, MicroStrategy 8^TM, enables users to query and analyze the most detailed, transaction-level databases, turning data into business intelligence and delivering boardroom quality reports and alerts about the users’ business processes. Our web-based architecture provides reporting, security, performance and standards that are critical for web deployment. Our products can be deployed on company intranets to provide employees with information to make better, more cost-effective business and management decisions. Leading companies and government organizations worldwide have chosen MicroStrategy as their enterprise business intelligence standard. By integrating information from across the enterprise, solutions built on the MicroStrategy platform are designed to give analysts, managers and executives the critical insight they need to make better business and management decisions and to optimize their operations. With extranet deployments, enterprises can use MicroStrategy 8 to build stronger relationships by linking customers and suppliers via the Internet. MicroStrategy facilitates customer success with a comprehensive offering of consulting, education, technical support and technical advisory services for our customers and strategic partners.

Industry Background

Business intelligence software offers decision-makers the opportunity to ask and answer questions about their use of data that has been captured but not yet fully exploited.

Four key business needs have driven demand for business intelligence tools:

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The emergence and widespread acceptance of the Internet as a medium of communication and commerce have changed the way businesses interact with each other and their customers by allowing businesses to establish new revenue streams, create new distribution channels and reduce costs. Simultaneously, the amount of corporate information stored in databases continues to grow exponentially, and companies are giving an increasing number of employees, customers and partners access to their information. Business intelligence tools are one of the gateways to this information. For example, companies are using Internet-based systems to facilitate business operations, including sales automation, supply-chain management, marketing, customer service and human resource management. Consumers are also becoming increasingly sophisticated in their use of the Internet, relying on the Internet not only to make online purchases, but to perform price comparisons, analyze recommendations from like-minded individuals, educate themselves about relevant products and offerings and enter into transactions that were once conducted face-to-face or via the telephone. The integration of the Internet into business processes and increased consumer sophistication create opportunities for companies to use business intelligence applications as part of a more dynamic business model. Factors driving demand for these applications include:

Increased Electronic Capture of Transaction, Operational and Customer Information.    The rapid growth in the electronic capture of business information and the increased availability of related profile data on the parties or products involved in each transaction are providing businesses with a rich data foundation for performing various analyses and making decisions. Powerful data analysis and mining tools are required to sift through massive amounts of data to uncover information regarding customer interactions, trends, patterns and exceptions, in turn enabling organizations to provide superior service and products to customers.

Need to Create a Personalized, One-to-One Customer and/or Supplier Experience While Maintaining Privacy.    Many companies are initiating strategies that establish personalized relationships with each customer and/or supplier based on individual needs and preferences, and earn their loyalty by providing superior service, security and convenience. In order to successfully acquire, retain and upgrade customers, organizations need to understand their profiles, their transaction history, their past responses to marketing campaigns, and their interactions with customer service. Retrieving information from widely dispersed and complex data sources and providing a holistic view of the customer can be challenging. At the same time, while businesses have the opportunity to collect a variety of information that could improve targeting, customers are increasingly concerned about the potential for loss or abuse of their privacy.

Need to Integrate Online and Traditional Operations.    While there are substantial benefits to conducting business electronically, companies need to ensure that their online operations work in combination with their traditional operations. Companies are seeking to ensure that an order placed online can be reliably fulfilled according to the expectations of the customer and to develop and maintain consistent interactions with customers across different channels. Maintaining the integrity of, and enhancing, the customer experience are crucial to fostering customer loyalty and supply chain relationships.

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Increased Openness of Business Intelligence Applications to Customers, Suppliers and Partners.    Business intelligence systems are no longer confined to the corporation. Today, companies are extending their business intelligence insight to suppliers, channel partners and customers via extranets. Business partners can have up-to-the-minute access to sales histories, inventory status and billing information through their web browsers.

Emergence of Wireless Internet and Voice Technologies.    Information can be more valuable if there is untethered, ubiquitous access to the information. An integrated platform reduces the need to rely on multiple vendors for these products and services. This development is expected to generate new business opportunities for companies by providing an additional channel for existing services and creating opportunities to provide new services that can be delivered to any place and at any time to anyone that has access to a wireless device.

MicroStrategy Solution: Business Intelligence for the Whole Enterprise

MicroStrategy offers MicroStrategy 8, an integrated, industrial-strength business intelligence platform designed to enable organizations to consolidate business intelligence applications onto a single platform for reporting, analysis and monitoring of real-time business information. The platform provides reliable and maintainable solutions with a low total cost of ownership and can be used in a departmental, enterprise or extranet deployments. The MicroStrategy 8 business intelligence platform can be used to identify trends, improve operational efficiencies, reduce costs and increase profitability. Since businesses integrate information from across the enterprise, solutions built on the MicroStrategy 8 platform give analysts, managers and executives critical insight they need in optimizing their business operations. Integrated web-based reporting, report delivery and real-time alerting capabilities can enable the entire enterprise to work smarter, faster and better.

MicroStrategy’s business intelligence platform provides the functionality users need to make better business and management decisions. The MicroStrategy 8 platform delivers a high-performance solution that meets users’ demands and is highly functional, simple to use, scalable and easy to administer. With one platform, users are able to report, analyze and monitor their business with all of the five most popular styles of business intelligence, which consist of:

Specific benefits of the MicroStrategy 8 business intelligence platform include:

Flexibility to Report, Analyze, and Monitor.    MicroStrategy is the first and only business intelligence architecture to unify reporting, analysis, and real-time business monitoring into one experience for the business user, into one efficient and scalable architecture for the IT professional, and into one economical and extensible utility for the CIO.

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Industrial-Strength Business Intelligence.    The MicroStrategy platform enables industrial-strength business intelligence with enterprise-caliber IT, high user scalability and high database scalability. MicroStrategy enables centralized administration, operations and operations maintenance in a unified interface and unified backplane. This enterprise-caliber infrastructure allows for data scalability and user scalability with a zero footprint web product, where business intelligence can expand across and grow with the enterprise.

Five Styles of Business Intelligence.    With the five styles of business intelligence on an integrated backplane, users are no longer bound to departmental reporting or solutions that offer only one style of business intelligence or combine individual styles of business intelligence. The need for multiple business intelligence or reporting tools is minimized when users have access to all five styles for their enterprise business intelligence needs.

Easy-to-use Interface for Business Users.    MicroStrategy exposes all the sophisticated business intelligence applications to end users through easy to use intuitive what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) web interfaces. This enables deployment to large user populations with minimal training required. The user interface includes an array of “one-click” actions embedded throughout the interface. It uses dialog boxes, mouse-over tool tips, and undo/redo buttons to make it easy for business people to explore the software without prior training.

Interactive Reporting.    MicroStrategy 8 has extended the MicroStrategy reporting capability by making all reports and scorecards fully interactive. Business users can rearrange the organization of any report with simple drag-n-drop actions or by clicking on the toolbar icons to get views of the data, all from the same report and without requiring assistance from IT.

Integration of Analysis in Every Report or Scorecard.    MicroStrategy 8 makes the same powerful analytic capability available directly from enterprise reports or scorecards automatically. MicroStrategy 8 delivers analytic integration to reporting users in two ways. The first way is by providing OLAP capabilities directly to tables embedded within report documents, allowing business users to analyze the data within the table while staying within the bigger report document. The second way allows users to “drill” from a report document to a dedicated analysis view that is optimized for conducting detailed analysis. In both cases, the integration of reporting with analysis is automatic.

Direct Access to SAP^® BW.    MicroStrategy 8 incorporates a dynamic data access engine in its architecture. This engine is designed to access multi-dimensional databases (MDDBs or OLAP Cube Databases), such as those from SAP Business Information Warehouse (BW). MicroStrategy 8’s Dynamic MDX Engine generates MDX syntax that is fully certified with SAP BW using SAP’s high performance BAPI interfaces. Because MicroStrategy’s MDX is dynamically generated using the multidimensional models implicit in SAP InfoCubes, QueryCubes, and ODS, users can automatically and transparently drill back into SAP BW for more data, without any prior programming or prior design of drill paths. MicroStrategy 8 can also join data across SAP BW Infocubes and QueryCubes as well as access multiple instances of SAP BW at once.

Direct Access to Operational Data (From ERP Systems).    MicroStrategy 8 extends the MicroStrategy metadata architecture to include attributes and facts accessed directly from non-modeled databases, instantly on a query-by-query basis. MicroStrategy 8’s Operational SQL Engine enables MicroStrategy reports to include data from any operational system using completely free-form SQL, including stored procedures and views. Since the attributes and facts from operational database sources are managed by the MicroStrategy metadata architecture, MicroStrategy’s security architecture and other reusable objects such as prompts can be applied automatically.

Heterogeneous Joining of Data From Across the Enterprise.    MicroStrategy 8 extends the MicroStrategy data modeling flexibility to include integrated views of data across heterogeneous data stores. By mapping conforming dimensions from different sources within the MicroStrategy object model, MicroStrategy 8 can automatically join data from multiple different sources in the same report document. Data can come from any

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source accessible by MicroStrategy 8, including the data warehouse, data marts, SAP BW, and any number of operational system databases.

Integrating Data Mining into Mainstream Reports & Analyses.    MicroStrategy 8 extended its analytic engine by allowing reports and analyses to include predictive capabilities in every MicroStrategy report or analysis. MicroStrategy 8’s analytic engine can calculate four of the primary data mining functions including neural network algorithms, clustering algorithms, regression algorithms, and tree algorithms. Hand-in-hand with this calculation capability, MicroStrategy 8 also includes the ability to import data mining models directly from data mining products from vendors like IBM^®, Teradata^®, SAS, and SPSS using the predictive modeling mark-up language standard. With this capability, data mining models can be imported through a single click and automatically converted into a standard MicroStrategy metric. After that, MicroStrategy’s Data Mining Service extension enables these metrics to be used freely and calculated quickly in reports, analyses and alerts.

Support for Large Data Volumes and All Major Relational Database/Hardware Combinations.    The MicroStrategy platform supports systems with very large data volumes and is specifically optimized to support all major relational database platforms commonly used for business intelligence systems as well as multi-dimensional databases like SAP Business Warehouse (BW). Important features of our solution in this area include:

Powerful Analytics to Customer- and Transaction-Levels of Detail.    We believe that the MicroStrategy 8 platform incorporates one of the most sophisticated analysis engines available today, capable of answering highly detailed business questions. It offers support for information beyond the summary level to include information at the customer- and transaction- levels. This capability is critical to a wide range of applications, including highly targeted direct marketing, e-commerce site personalization, customer and product affinity analysis, call detail analysis, fraud detection, credit analysis forecasting, trend metrics and campaign management. The MicroStrategy 8 platform allows the creation of highly sophisticated systems that take maximum advantage of the detail available in a company’s databases.

Powerful Personalization Engine.    The MicroStrategy 8 platform includes a customer- and transaction-level personalization engine. The underlying architecture is designed to generate personalization parameters based on data gathered by an organization from a variety of sources, including past customers’ transactions, customer clickstream information, stated user preferences and demographic information. In addition, the MicroStrategy personalization engine is able to determine when and under what circumstances a person is automatically provided with a set of information that proves useful in fraud detection and homeland security applications.

Powerful Narrowcast Server Distribution Engine for Information Delivery.    Our technology offers a high performance personalized narrowcast engine for delivering periodic and alert-based information to users via Internet, e-mail, wireless devices, printer and fax. The narrowcast engine includes drivers for all major device types used in both domestic and international markets, enabling the delivery of information to users when and where it is needed.

Highly Stylized and Consolidated Reporting and Formatting Capabilities.    MicroStrategy Report Services^™ technology delivers a wide range of enterprise reports via the Web, including production and operational reports, managed metrics reports and scorecards. The design capabilities provide the precision

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necessary to deliver reports with boardroom presentation quality, without any programming. By dragging and dropping report components, users can create high quality reports with complete formatting flexibility. Unlike other popular reporting products, the modern architecture delivers both traditional hierarchical banded reports and newer, Web-oriented zone-based reports.

Strategy

Our business objective is to become the leading provider of business intelligence software and related services to the largest enterprises, governments and the largest databases and data providers in the world. The key elements of our strategy to achieve this objective are as follows:

Marketing Strategy.    Our business intelligence platform marketing strategy is designed to increase our footprint in the business intelligence market by increasing awareness of the MicroStrategy 8 platform. In the business intelligence market, our marketing programs target five principal constituencies:

We continually seek to increase our brand awareness by focusing our messaging on the possibilities for value creation with our business intelligence platform, the benefits of using our platform and competitive differentiators. The channels we use to communicate with these constituencies include:

Technology Strategy.    Our technology strategy is focused on expanding our support for large information stores, enhancing our analysis and segmentation capabilities, strengthening our personalization technology and enhancing our report delivery and alerting functionality to all commonly used devices. We continue to enhance our technology for use with a broad range of operating systems and databases to enable our customers to leverage their existing technology investments to achieve faster query times with fewer required resources. In addition, we continue to develop our platform for easy integration with a wide spectrum of enterprise resource planning (ERP)

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systems. As part of this strategy, we are developing technology that further differentiates our product offerings by increasing functionality along the following key dimensions:

Sales Strategy.    Our sales strategy focuses on direct sales through our dedicated sales force and relationships with indirect channel partners in order to increase market share in both domestic and international markets. We also seek to increase sales to our existing base of customers by offering a range of software and services utilizing our integrated business intelligence platform. Finally, we offer a comprehensive set of educational programs that enhance our potential customers’ and channel partners’ understanding of the power of our platform.

Products

We offer an integrated business intelligence platform, known as MicroStrategy 8, which is designed to enable businesses to turn information into strategic insight and make more effective business decisions. Revenues from sales of product licenses accounted for approximately $97.0 million of total revenues during 2004.

MicroStrategy 8.    MicroStrategy 8 was released for general availability on February 1, 2005 and includes a number of major enhancements from its predecessor, MicroStrategy 7i. MicroStrategy 8’s major enhancements include a redesigned web interface, interactive reporting in Report Services, improved integrated analysis to facilitate drilling into more-detailed analysis, WYSIWYG report design over the web, direct access to SAP BW metadata, direct access to operational data, improved reporting by joining heterogeneous databases, and improved predictive reporting and analysis including enhanced integration with third party data mining products.

MicroStrategy 8 is designed for business executives, report consumers, and business managers, as well as power users and analysts with simplicity and high productivity in mind. MicroStrategy 8 integrates a full range of reporting, analysis, and monitoring capabilities into a single platform—providing central management of security, administration, development and deployment.

MicroStrategy 8 is designed to integrate the two leading business intelligence approaches, ad hoc query and reporting (ROLAP) and cube analysis (MOLAP), delivering quick response time against almost any size data set, full access to transaction-level data and a myriad of options for complex analysis. MicroStrategy 8 is enabling organizations to consolidate business intelligence applications onto a single platform, resulting in reliable and maintainable solutions with a low total cost of ownership.

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The MicroStrategy 8 platform consists of the following product components:

MicroStrategy Intelligence Server.    MicroStrategy Intelligence Server is the foundation for our business intelligence platform. We believe that MicroStrategy Intelligence Server is the most advanced business intelligence server available in the market, capable of answering highly sophisticated business questions. Its robust ROLAP technology enables organizations to conduct large-scale product affinity and product profitability analyses, research customer preferences through sales, contribution and pricing analysis, and compare present and historical customer retention data with forecasting and trend metrics. MicroStrategy Intelligence Server generates highly optimized queries through its very large database drivers, enabling high throughput and fast response times.

MicroStrategy Intelligence Server has been built with the scalability and fault tolerance required for sophisticated analysis of multi-terabyte databases and can be deployed to thousands of users through complete user, object and data security and management. It contains thousands of specific optimizations for all major relational databases and multi-dimensional databases like SAP Business Warehouse (BW) and includes the load distribution, prioritization and system tuning capabilities demanded by large-scale implementations.

MicroStrategy Intelligence Server contains an analytical engine with over 240 different sophisticated mathematical, financial and statistical data mining functions with the flexibility for further function extensions. MicroStrategy Intelligence Server combines the power of its analytical engine with the scalability of a relational database to perform complex data analysis with maximum efficiency. All of the other products in the MicroStrategy 8 platform integrate with the MicroStrategy Intelligence Server and benefit from its broad functionality.

MicroStrategy Intelligence Server is designed to be fault-tolerant to ensure system availability and high performance. Through an enterprise management console, MicroStrategy Intelligence Server provides a sophisticated array of enterprise management tools, such as caching and query prioritization to streamline performance and batch job scheduling, which helps to maintain disparate and diverse user communities. Administrators can automate the dynamic adjustments of system and user governing settings, such as user thresholds and database thread priorities, in order to smooth the database workload and ensure the high performance that large user communities require.

MicroStrategy Intelligence Server is designed as a services oriented architecture (SOA) to easily augment functionality and capabilities throughout the platform. MicroStrategy Intelligence Server Universal Edition uses an optimized 64-bit architecture and runs on a 64-bit Unix platform for even greater performance. MicroStrategy OLAP Services^™ and Report Services^™employ this services-oriented architecture design.

MicroStrategy Report Services.    MicroStrategy Report Services is the enterprise reporting engine of the MicroStrategy business intelligence platform that delivers an entire range of enterprise reports, including production and operational reports, managed metrics reports and scorecards. The WYSIWYG design capabilities on the Web provide the precision necessary to deliver these reports with desktop publishing quality and drag-and-drop simplicity. Users can create reports using intuitive design features without programming or outside help.

MicroStrategy 8 OLAP Services^™.    MicroStrategy 8 combines the speed and interactivity of multi-dimensional OLAP analysis with the analytical power and depth of relational OLAP. MicroStrategy 8 OLAP Services is an extension of MicroStrategy Intelligence Server that allows MicroStrategy Web and Desktop users to manipulate Intelligent Cubes^™. End users can add or remove report objects, add derived metrics and modify the filter—all with “speed-of-thought” response time against Intelligent Cubes. MicroStrategy 8 OLAP Services enables full multi-dimensional OLAP analysis within Intelligent Cubes, while retaining the ability of users to seamlessly drill through to the full breadth and depth of the data warehouse.

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MicroStrategy Web and MicroStrategy Web Universal.    MicroStrategy Web is a patented zero-footprint, browser independent web interface providing query, reporting and analysis through a platform independent architecture. MicroStrategy Web’s interface provides a familiar look and features drag-and-drop report creation, one-click tool bars, dialogue boxes, spreadsheet formatting, advanced printing and exporting, and right-click menus for drilling, pivoting and sorting. All of this is accomplished without ActiveX, Java^™ Applets or client side installations or downloads, helping to ensure the highest levels of security.

MicroStrategy Web provides users with a highly interactive environment and low maintenance interface for reporting and analysis. Using this intuitive HTML-only web solution, users access, analyze and share corporate data. MicroStrategy Web provides ad hoc querying, industry-leading analysis, quick deployment and rapid customizability, making it even easier for users to make informed business and management decisions on virtually any web browser.

MicroStrategy Web Universal features the same powerful functionality that users are familiar with in MicroStrategy Web with the added benefit of working with all major operating systems, application servers, and web servers.

MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server.    MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server is a proactive report delivery and alerting server that distributes personalized business information to recipients via e-mail, printers, file servers, portals, wireless devices, fax and phone. MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server delivers targeted information to individuals on an event-triggered or scheduled basis through the communication device that is most convenient. It provides an engine for implementing targeted messaging to acquire and retain customers and a platform for distributing information to corporate departments, the entire enterprise and other stakeholders including customers and suppliers.

MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server has a web-based interface that can be used with existing web applications. Users can subscribe to information services by providing personal information and preferences, enabling them to receive personalized information relevant to them.

In addition to proactively delivering reports from the MicroStrategy 8 platform, MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server’s open information source modules enable it to deliver information from a multitude of information sources to the business user. The multiple information sources can be combined to provide users with requested information in one personalized e-mail, message or document.

MicroStrategy Office.    MicroStrategy Office lets every Microsoft^® Office user run, edit and format any MicroStrategy report directly from within Microsoft applications such as Excel, PowerPoint and Word. MicroStrategy Office is designed using Microsoft .NET technology and accesses the MicroStrategy business intelligence platform using XML and Web services. MicroStrategy Office gives business users open and straightforward access to the full functionality of the MicroStrategy platform—all from familiar Microsoft Office applications. MicroStrategy Office serves as a Microsoft add-in, with MicroStrategy functionality expressed as a single tool bar in Microsoft.

MicroStrategy Desktop.    MicroStrategy Desktop is a business intelligence software component that provides integrated query and reporting, powerful analytics and decision support workflow on the personal computing desktop. MicroStrategy Desktop provides a rich set of features for online analysis of corporate data. Even complex reports are easy to create and can be viewed in various presentation formats, polished into production reports, distributed to other users and extended through a host of ad hoc features including drilling, pivoting and data slicing. The interface itself can be customized to different users’ skill levels and security profiles. MicroStrategy Desktop comes in two versions:

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Applications developed within MicroStrategy Desktop can be easily deployed throughout the MicroStrategy architecture bringing integrated query and reporting capabilities, powerful analytics and decision support workflow to analysts, quantitative users and end users throughout the enterprise and beyond.

MicroStrategy Architect.    MicroStrategy Architect is the MicroStrategy 8 product in which applications are modeled through an intuitive graphical user interface. MicroStrategy Architect provides a unified environment for creating and maintaining business modules and their relations to underlying data for business intelligence applications. MicroStrategy Architect is highly automated and is based on an open, flexible architecture, which can greatly reduce the cost and time required to implement and maintain systems.

MicroStrategy Administrator.    MicroStrategy Administrator enables administrators to efficiently develop, deploy, monitor and maintain small and medium systems as well as enterprise-scale systems supporting thousands of users. Project migration utilities help administrators develop, test and deploy systems. Performance analysis enables administrators to monitor and tune systems for maximum performance and availability. MicroStrategy Administrator has been designed to ensure easy management of application objects and users across multiple development, testing and production environments. MicroStrategy Administrator eases the burden of maintaining users and security by using textual commands that can be saved as scripts. These commands and scripts can be executed from either a graphical interface or from the command line giving system administrators the flexibility and ease-of-use necessary for efficient systems management. MicroStrategy Administrator tools consist of Object Manager, Enterprise Manager and Command Manager.

MicroStrategy SDK.    MicroStrategy SDK is a comprehensive development environment that enables integration of MicroStrategy 8 features and functionality into any application on multiple platforms, including UNIX-based systems using a Java-based Web API. Through sample code, documentation and reference guides, the MicroStrategy SDK enables an application developer to quickly learn to use the APIs to implement easy-to-use web reporting and powerful business intelligence applications.

All API interfaces within the MicroStrategy SDK reflect XML architecture. MicroStrategy SDK’s Portal Integration Kit^™ includes pre-built samples for embedding MicroStrategy 8 analysis into a corporate portal. The Web Services Development Kit^™ provides sample code that enables MicroStrategy 8 functionality to be accessed via standard Web Services.

MicroStrategy BI Developer Kit.    MicroStrategy BI Developer Kit is a package of products that includes MicroStrategy Desktop Designer, MicroStrategy Architect and modular analytic applications. The analytic modules are starter kits designed to streamline business processes through the use of business intelligence. Each of the modules ships with a sample data-model and numerous reports and key performance indicators. The analytic modules are designed to enable portability and the ability to work against existing data warehouses without the need for additional data extraction and loading concerns. The modules are easy to extend and modify and reflect a decade of business intelligence implementation experience and best practices of the most common business analysis applications.

MicroStrategy MDX Adapter.    MicroStrategy MDX Adapter opens the analytical power and scalability of the MicroStrategy 8 Platform to other business intelligence reporting tools. With MicroStrategy MDX Adapter, reporting tools that use the OLE DB for OLAP (ODBO) standard created by Microsoft can connect through MicroStrategy Intelligence Server and access any major relational database.

Unlike MicroStrategy’s product offerings, many business intelligence applications depend on replication of pre-calculated data into multidimensional, physical cubes. These proprietary cubes can reach data storage limitations quickly. Furthermore, the process to build and load cubes uses valuable time and resources. MicroStrategy MDX Adapter helps companies that have reached the data scalability and analytical limitations of

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their current business intelligence solution by eliminating the need for physical cubes and giving users access to terabytes of data in any major relational database without costly modifications to the physical cubes or expensive data replication.

MicroStrategy MDX Adapter allows organizations to standardize on a reporting and analysis platform, while still enabling users to access the platform from a variety of user interfaces. Companies that have hit scalability, administration, security and analytical limits with their existing analysis tools can continue to provide users with their interface of choice, while replacing the underlying business intelligence engine with the more robust and reliable MicroStrategy 8 business intelligence platform. This leverages investments in databases, software and training and removes some of the traditional burdens of cube-based architectures.

MicroStrategy Transactor^™.    MicroStrategy Transactor is a workflow server that allows users to turn insight gained from their MicroStrategy business intelligence applications into actionable decisions. MicroStrategy Transactor directs and manages the workflow required to take business intelligence information from a web report, email, wireless message or voice alert and complete a closed-loop transaction with all major back-end information systems.

Product Support and Other Services

MicroStrategy Technical Support.    MicroStrategy Technical Support provides a diverse set of support options to meet the needs of customers and projects and offers product upgrades when available. Our product experts help support MicroStrategy implementation across the development, deployment and production environments. Our support offerings include access to our highly skilled support team during standard business hours, around the clock access to our online support site, and options to secure dedicated technical support at any time of the day. Technical support services are provided to customers for a maintenance fee, which is charged in addition to the initial product license fee. Revenues from technical support services accounted for approximately 39.4%, 36.7% and 34.7% of total revenues during 2004, 2003, and 2002, respectively.

MicroStrategy Consulting.    MicroStrategy Consulting offers customers a broad range of business intelligence and data warehousing expertise gathered from helping thousands of customers across diverse industries implement departmental, enterprise and extranet applications across various types of databases. Our Consulting staff identifies the optimal design and implementation strategy that includes detailed business requirements, user interface requirements and performance tuning. By leveraging our best practices, strategic visioning, project planning and platform expertise, we assist customers’ technical staff in completing projects and developing solutions that business users will adopt. Revenues from Consulting services, including Technical Advisory Services, discussed below, accounted for approximately 13.6%, 14.0% and 17.1% of total revenues during 2004, 2003, and 2002, respectively.

MicroStrategy Education.    MicroStrategy Education offers goal-oriented, comprehensive education solutions for customers and partners. Through the use of self-tutorials, custom course development, joint training with customers’ internal staff or standard course offerings, MicroStrategy’s Education consultants develop an ongoing education program that meets our customers’ specific education needs. Our team of education consultants delivers quality, cost-effective instruction and skill development for administrators, developers and analysts. MicroStrategy offers the Perennial Education Pass (PEP) Program which allows customers to train named individuals through an unlimited number of public MicroStrategy instructor-led courses and online courses under this annual program. Revenues from Education services accounted for approximately 4.5%, 5.1%, and 5.5% of total revenues during 2004, 2003, and 2002, respectively.

MicroStrategy Technical Advisory Services.    MicroStrategy also offers Technical Advisory Services as an advisory service for enterprise customers seeking to maximize their investment in the MicroStrategy business intelligence platform. MicroStrategy Technical Advisory Services provides members with a comprehensive program of advisory services, knowledge capital and corporate support. MicroStrategy Technical Advisory

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Services has been designed to help provide the optimal opportunity to experience success and the highest return on investment on MicroStrategy’s business intelligence platform. MicroStrategy Technical Advisory Services delivers subject matter expertise, project management, strategic consulting and expedited resources to enhance the success of customer deployments. Revenues from MicroStrategy Technical Advisory Services are included within revenues from consulting services as discussed above.

We also have two development stage business units, Angel.com and Alarm.com, that are engaged in non-core business intelligence activities. The financial results of Angel.com and Alarm.com are not material to our worldwide financial results.

Customers

MicroStrategy has over 2,800 customers across a diverse group of industries, including retail (5 of the top 10 globally), telecommunications (all of the top 10 globally), financial services (4 of the top 5 global diversified financial services companies), insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies (9 of the top 10 globally), healthcare (5 of the top 10 globally), manufacturing (5 of the top 10 global manufacturers), technology, consumer goods and government and public services. International sales accounted for 40.7%, 34.0% and 36.0% of our total revenues in 2004, 2003, and 2002, respectively.

Below is a representative list of domestic and international firms that use the MicroStrategy business intelligence platform:

Customer Case Studies

Ace Hardware Corporation.    A customer since January 2001, Ace Hardware expanded its deployment of the MicroStrategy platform in 2004 for enterprise-wide reporting and analysis on marketing initiatives, retail pricing, category management, merchandising, inventory, wholesale pricing and customer loyalty programs like Helpful Hardware Club. Approximately 6,400 corporate employees, vendors and Ace retailers are using MicroStrategy to analyze and report on over a terabyte of data housed in a Teradata data warehouse.

Cingular Wireless.    With more than 25 million voice and data customers across the United States, Cingular Wireless is a leader in mobile voice and data communications. Cingular selected MicroStrategy for its ad-hoc analysis capabilities. Approximately 100 marketing users will perform customer churn analysis using customer

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and financial data stored in a Teradata data warehouse. Cingular will utilize MicroStrategy to track and analyze sales and marketing data to provide end users with greater insight into its customer acquisition and retention programs.

E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Company.    DuPont Crop Protection serves production agriculture with products for the grain and specialty crop sectors as well as forestry and vegetation management. DuPont selected MicroStrategy to anchor its Development Data Warehouse, a business intelligence tool that analyzes, summarizes, manages, and reports on global field development trials for crop protection chemicals. With over 150 users, DuPont’s business intelligence solution has several custom applications including Custom Dynamic Grouping, which involves consolidation and business decision management; Management Console, which involves warehouse management for Extraction, Transformation and Loading (ETL) and maintaining global standards; and Enterprise Manager, which involves report usage statistics distributed via email. Using these custom applications, DuPont generates over 4,000 reports a month.

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).    The FBI will be using the MicroStrategy Business Intelligence Platform to analyze and access data in the Bureau’s Investigative Data Warehouse. MicroStrategy technology will support information sharing among law enforcement, intelligence and homeland security agencies. Information sharing among these agencies—important to national security—will be enhanced by MicroStrategy’s ability to provide a Web-based, collaborative environment for hundreds of analysts to access vast amounts of data. This information sharing is intended to make it easier to respond and react to possible homeland security threats.

Sales And Marketing

Direct Sales Organization.    We market our software and services primarily through our direct sales force. As of December 31, 2004, we had domestic sales offices in a number of cities, including Atlanta, Austin, Carlsbad, California, Charlotte, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, Denver, Edina, Minnesota, Los Angeles, New York, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, Tampa, Troy, Michigan and Washington, DC, and international sales offices located in Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Cologne, Frankfurt, London, Lisbon, Madrid, Melbourne, Mexico City, Milan, Montreal, Monterrey, Munich, Paris, Rome, Sao Paolo, Seoul, Tokyo, Toronto and Utrecht. We are represented by distributors in several countries where we do not have sales offices, including Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, India, Ireland, Malaysia, Malta, Norway, Peru, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine and Uruguay.

Indirect Sales Channels.    We have entered into relationships with nearly 300 reseller, value-added reseller, system integration, original equipment manufacturers (“OEM”) and technology partners who utilize the MicroStrategy platform for a variety of commercial purposes. Agreements with these partners generally provide non-exclusive rights to market our products and services and allow access to our marketing materials, product training and direct sales force for field level assistance. In addition, we offer our sales partners product discounts. Favorable product recommendations to potential customers from our partners, which include leading system integration, application development and platform manufacturers, facilitate the sale of our products. We believe that such indirect sales channels allow us to leverage sales and service resources as well as marketing and industry-specific expertise to expand our user base and increase our market coverage. In addition, we have entered into agreements with resellers who resell our software on a stand-alone basis.

Reseller/System Integration Partners.    Our resellers/systems integration alliances include partners who can resell our software on a stand-alone basis, value-added resellers who resell the MicroStrategy 8 platform software bundled with their own software applications and system integrators who deploy MicroStrategy solutions to their customers, including:

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OEM Partners.    Our OEM partners integrate the MicroStrategy 8 Business Intelligence Platform or some of its components into their applications. A selection of these OEM partners includes:

Technology Partners.    In order to deliver even higher value to our customers, MicroStrategy has integrated its business intelligence platform with the leading data warehouse and related technology platforms and software. We have integrated our platform with leading portal technology, ETL technology and specialized display technology products to name just a few. Through our Technology Partner program, we continue our efforts to help ensure that customers can easily implement the MicroStrategy 8 business intelligence platform alongside other chosen corporate technology standards. Our technology partners include:

Research and Product Development

We have made, and continue to make, substantial investments in research and product development. We believe that our future performance will depend in large part on our ability to maintain and enhance our current product line, develop new products that achieve market acceptance, maintain technological competitiveness and meet an expanding range of customer requirements. As of December 31, 2004, our research and product development staff consisted of 209 employees, 195 of whom are working on our core business intelligence

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projects and 14 of whom are working on research and development relating to our non-core business units, Angel.com and Alarm.com. Our total expenses for research and development, which do not include those costs capitalized as software development costs, for the years 2004, 2003, and 2002 were $24.9 million, $27.7 million, and $26.3 million, respectively.

Competition

The market for business intelligence software is intensely competitive and subject to rapidly changing technology. In addition, many companies in these markets are offering, or may soon offer, products and services that may compete with MicroStrategy products.

MicroStrategy faces competitors in several broad categories, including business intelligence software, analytical processes, query and web-based reporting tools, and report delivery. Our competitors that are primarily focused on business intelligence products include, Actuate, Business Objects, Cognos, Hyperion Solutions, Information Builders, Panorama, ArcPlan, ProClarity, OutlookSoft Corporation, and the SAS Institute. We also compete with large software corporations, including suppliers of enterprise resource planning software that provide one or more capabilities competitive with our products, including IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP AG and Siebel Systems.

Many of our competitors have longer operating histories, significantly greater financial, technical, marketing or other resources, and greater name recognition than we do. In addition, many of our competitors have strong relationships with current and potential customers and extensive knowledge of the business intelligence industry. As a result, they may be able to respond more quickly to new or emerging technologies and changes in customer requirements or devote greater resources to the development, promotion and sale of their products than we can. Increased competition may lead to price cuts, reduced gross margins and loss of market share. We may not be able to compete successfully against current and future competitors, and the failure to meet the competitive pressures we face may have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results and financial condition.

Current and future competitors may also make strategic acquisitions or establish cooperative relationships among themselves or with others. By doing so, they may increase their ability to meet the needs of our potential customers. Our current or prospective indirect channel partners may establish cooperative relationships with our current or future competitors. These relationships may limit our ability to sell our products through specific distribution channels. Accordingly, new competitors or alliances among current and future competitors may emerge and rapidly gain significant market share. These developments could limit our ability to obtain revenues from new customers and to maintain technical support revenues from our installed customer base.

Employees

As of December 31, 2004, we had a total of 945 employees, of whom 642 were based in the United States and 303 were based internationally. Of the total of 945 employees, 315 were engaged in sales and marketing, 209 in research and development, 240 in technical support, consulting and education services, and 181 in finance, administration and corporate operations. None of our employees are represented by a labor union. We have not experienced any work stoppages and consider our relations with our employees to be good.

We believe that effective recruiting, education and nurturing of human resources are critical to our success and have traditionally made investments in these areas in order to differentiate ourselves from our competition, increase employee loyalty and create a culture conducive to creativity, cooperation and continuous improvement.

All newly hired professionals complete a professional orientation course that ranges from one day to four weeks long, presented by “MicroStrategy University,” our in-house education function. The curriculum consists of lectures, problem sets and independent and group projects, covering data on our products, competitors and

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customers. Certain lectures also deal with general business practices, ethics and teamwork. Throughout this training, students typically must pass a number of oral and written examinations in order to begin their assignments. Course content for MicroStrategy University is created by experienced members of our professional staff, who generally have an annual obligation to update course content based upon the best practices they have most recently observed in the field. This expert content is then used to upgrade and revitalize our education, consulting, support, technology and marketing operations.

Available Information

MicroStrategy’s website is located at www.microstrategy.com. MicroStrategy makes available free of charge, on or through our website, our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and all amendments to those reports, as soon as reasonably practicable after electronically filing such reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). Information found on our website is not part of this report or any other report filed with the SEC.

Our principal offices are located in Northern Virginia in leased facilities pursuant to multiple leases, the majority of which expire between August 2006 and June 2010. These office facilities comprise a total of 260,000 square feet. As a result of restructuring plans adopted in 2001, we have approximately 77,000 square feet of leased office space that we currently do not occupy. As of December 31, 2004, all of the 77,000 square feet that we did not occupy had been subleased. In addition, we also lease sales offices domestically and internationally in a variety of locations, including Atlanta, Austin, Carlsbad, California, Charlotte, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, Denver, Edina, Minnesota, Los Angeles, New York, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, Tampa, Troy, Michigan, Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Cologne, Frankfurt, London, Lisbon, Madrid, Melbourne, Mexico City, Milan, Monterrey, Montreal, Munich, Paris, Rome, Sao Paolo, Seoul, Tokyo, Toronto and Utrecht. We believe our properties are suitable and adequate for our present and near term needs, and we do not expect to add additional office space in the foreseeable future.

Business Objects Litigation

On October 2, 2001, we filed a lawsuit in the Virginia Circuit Court for Fairfax County against two field employees of Business Objects, S.A. This lawsuit alleged that these employees, who previously worked for us, breached their fiduciary and contractual obligations to us by, among other things, misappropriating our trade secrets and confidential information and soliciting our employees and customers. The complaint sought injunctive relief and monetary damages. On October 17, 2001, Business Objects filed suit against us in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, claiming that our software infringes a patent issued to Business Objects relating to relational database access (the ‘403 patent). The suit sought injunctive relief and monetary damages. On August 29, 2003, the Court granted our motion for summary judgment and dismissed the lawsuit, ruling as a matter of law that our products do not infringe the ‘403 patent. Business Objects filed an appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The Federal Circuit heard oral arguments on September 9, 2004. On January 6, 2005, the Federal Circuit ruled that the district court had correctly construed the patent, that we do not literally infringe any of the asserted patent claims, and that Business Objects is legally barred from claiming that our products infringe two of the three asserted claims under the doctrine of equivalents. As a result of the Federal Circuit’s ruling, the case has been remanded to the district court for further proceedings limited solely to Business Objects’ one remaining patent claim, and limited solely to the doctrine of equivalents. The Federal Circuit also reinstated all of our non-infringement and invalidity counterclaims brought against Business Objects that the district court had not needed to address or decide.

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On October 31, 2001, we filed suit against Business Objects, S.A. and its subsidiary, Business Objects Americas, Inc., in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, claiming that Business Objects’ software infringes two patents held by us relating to asynchronous control of report generation using a web browser (the ‘033 patent) and a system and method of adapting automatic output of OLAP reports to disparate user output devices (the ‘050 patent). The complaint sought monetary damages and injunctive relief. On March 13, 2002, we voluntarily dismissed without prejudice our lawsuit pending in the Virginia Circuit Court for Fairfax County against the two field employees of Business Objects. The complaint against Business Objects was amended to add claims for violations of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, misappropriation of trade secrets, tortious interference with contractual relations and violations of the Virginia Conspiracy Act. As a result of pre-trial rulings, certain of these claims were dismissed. Our claims for tortious interference and misappropriation of trade secrets proceeded to trial on October 20, 2003. On October 28, 2003, the Court dismissed the tortious interference claim. In July 2003, the United States Patent & Trademark Office confirmed the validity of all the claims in the ‘033 and ‘050 patents and terminated reexamination proceedings that Business Objects had requested as to those patents. We agreed to dismissal of the ‘033 patent claims without prejudice. On June 8, 2004, the Court advised the parties that it intended to issue an order and opinion granting Business Objects’ motion for summary judgment of non-infringement on our ‘050 patent claims, and that the trial of the ‘050 patent claims previously scheduled to begin on June 15, 2004 would not occur. On August 6, 2004, the Court granted Business Objects’ motion for summary judgment on the ‘050 patent claims, ruling that Business Objects had not infringed the Company’s patent. The Court ruled in our favor on our claims of trade secret misappropriation, finding that Business Objects had misappropriated certain of our trade secrets. On September 7, 2004, we filed a notice of appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Court. Business Objects did not file a cross appeal. We filed our opening appeal brief on January 7, 2005. In addition, on December 3, 2004, the district court denied our motion for costs and Business Objects’ motion for fees and costs. Each party appealed this ruling by filing a notice of appeal to the Federal Circuit on January 3, 2005. On January 27, 2005, the parties filed a joint motion to stay these appeals regarding fees and costs pending the outcome of the merits appeal. This motion to stay was granted on March 9, 2005.

On December 10, 2003, we filed a complaint for patent infringement against Crystal Decisions, Inc. in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. The lawsuit alleges that Crystal Decisions willfully infringes three patents issued to us relating to: (i) asynchronous control of report generation using a web browser (the ‘033 patent); (ii) management of an automatic OLAP report broadcast system (the ‘796 patent); and (iii) providing business intelligence web content with reduced client-side processing (the ‘432 patent). We are seeking monetary damages and injunctive relief. Following the filing of the complaint, Crystal Decisions was acquired by Business Objects Americas, Inc. Business Objects Americas, Inc. has answered the complaint, denying infringement and seeking a declaration that the patents in suit are invalid and not infringed by Business Objects Americas, Inc. Trial is scheduled for November 2005.

The outcome of the legal proceedings described above is uncertain.

Other Proceedings

We are also involved in other legal proceedings through the normal course of business. Management believes that any unfavorable outcome related to these other proceedings will not have a material effect on our financial position, results of operations or cash flows.

No matters were submitted to a vote of security holders during the fourth quarter of 2004.

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PART II

Our class A common stock is traded on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol “MSTR.” The following table sets forth the high and low sales prices for the class A common stock for the periods indicated as reported by the Nasdaq National Market:

As of March 1, 2005, there were approximately 1,767 stockholders of record of our class A common stock and 7 stockholders of record of our class B common stock.

We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our class A common stock and do not anticipate declaring or paying any such dividends in the foreseeable future. Our stock price has fluctuated substantially since our initial public offering in June 1998. The trading price of our class A common stock is subject to significant fluctuations in response to variations in quarterly operating results, the gain or loss of significant orders, changes in earnings estimates by analysts, announcements of technological innovations or new products by us or our competitors, general conditions in the software and computer industries and other events or factors. In addition, the equity markets in general have experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations which have affected the market price for many companies in industries similar or related to that of ours and which have been unrelated to the operating performance of these companies. These market fluctuations have affected and may continue to affect the market price of our class A common stock.

On July 27, 2004, we announced that our Board of Directors had authorized the repurchase of up to an aggregate of $35.0 million of our class A common stock from time to time in the open market or in privately negotiated transactions. During August 2004, we repurchased 67,800 shares on the open market at an approximate cost of $2.3 million. We will determine the timing and amount of any shares repurchased in future periods pursuant to this authorization based on our evaluation of market conditions and other factors. The repurchase program will be funded using our working capital and may be suspended or discontinued at any time.

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The following table provides information about our repurchases during the periods indicated of equity securities that are registered by us pursuant to Section 12 of the Exchange Act.

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ITEM 6.    SELECTED FINANCIAL DATA

The following selected consolidated financial data should be read in conjunction with “Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” the consolidated financial statements and notes thereto, and other financial information appearing elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

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Overview

We are a leading worldwide provider of business intelligence software that enables companies to analyze the raw data stored across their enterprise to reveal the trends and insights needed to develop solutions to manage their business effectively. Our software delivers this critical information to workgroups, the enterprise and extranet communities via e-mail, web, fax, wireless, and voice communication channels. Businesses can use our software platform to develop user-friendly solutions, proactively optimize revenue-generating strategies, enhance cost-efficiency and productivity and improve customer relationships.

Our MicroStrategy software platform enables users to query and analyze the most detailed, transaction-level databases, turning data into business intelligence and delivering reports and alerts about the users’ business processes. Our web-based architecture provides reporting, security, performance and standards that are critical for web deployment. With intranet deployments, our products provide employees with information to enable them to make better, more cost-effective business decisions. With extranet deployments, enterprises can use the MicroStrategy software platform to build stronger relationships by linking customers and suppliers via the Internet. We also offer a comprehensive set of consulting, education, technical support and technical advisory services for our customers and partners.

Critical Accounting Policies

MicroStrategy’s consolidated financial statements are prepared in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America. For a comprehensive discussion of our accounting policies, see note 2 in the accompanying consolidated financial statements included in Item 15 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

The preparation of our consolidated financial statements requires us to make estimates and judgments that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities and equity and disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the financial statements and the reported amounts of revenues and expenses during the reporting period. These estimates and judgments, particularly relating to revenue recognition, benefit or provision for income taxes, restructuring and impairment charges and litigation and contingencies, have a material impact on our financial statements, and are discussed in detail throughout our analysis of the results of operations as discussed below.

In addition to evaluating estimates relating to the items discussed above, we also consider other estimates, including, but not limited to, those related to allowance for doubtful accounts, software development costs and intangible assets. We base our estimates on historical experience and on various other assumptions that we believe are reasonable under the circumstances, the results of which form the basis for making judgments about the carrying value of assets, liabilities and equity that are not readily apparent from other sources. Actual results and outcomes could differ from these estimates and assumptions. Additional information regarding risk factors that may impact our estimates is included below under “Risk Factors”.

We apply the following critical accounting policies in the preparation of our consolidated financial statements:

Revenue Recognition.    MicroStrategy’s software revenue recognition policies are in accordance with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ Statement of Position (“SOP”) 97-2, “Software Revenue Recognition,” as amended. In the case of software arrangements that require significant production, modification or customization of software, we follow the guidance in SOP 81-1, “Accounting for Performance of Construction-Type and Certain Production-Type Contracts.” We also follow the guidance provided by SEC Staff Accounting Bulletin (“SAB”) No. 101, “Revenue Recognition in Financial Statements,” and SAB No. 104, “Revenue Recognition,” which provide guidance on the recognition, presentation and disclosure of revenue in the financial statements filed with the SEC.

We recognize revenue from sales of software licenses to end users or resellers upon persuasive evidence of an arrangement, as provided by agreements or contracts executed by both parties, delivery of the software and determination that collection of a fixed or determinable fee is reasonably assured. When the fees for software

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upgrades and enhancements, technical support, consulting and education are bundled with the license fee, they are unbundled using our objective evidence of the fair value of the elements represented by our customary pricing for each element in separate transactions. If such evidence of fair value exists for all undelivered elements and there is no such evidence of fair value established for delivered elements, revenue is first allocated to the elements where evidence of fair value has been established and the residual amount is allocated to the delivered elements. If evidence of fair value for any undelivered element of an arrangement does not exist, all revenue from the arrangement is deferred until such time that evidence of fair value exists for undelivered elements or until all elements of the arrangement are delivered, subject to certain limited exceptions set forth in SOP 97-2.

When a software license arrangement requires us to provide significant production, customization or modification of the software, or when the customer considers these services essential to the functionality of the software product, both the product license revenue and consulting services revenue are recognized using the percentage of completion method. Under percentage of completion accounting, both product license and consulting services revenue are recognized as work progresses based upon labor hours incurred. Any expected losses on contracts in progress are expensed in the period in which the losses become probable and reasonably estimable. Contracts accounted for under the percentage of completion method were immaterial for the years ended December 31, 2004, 2003 and 2002.

If an arrangement includes acceptance criteria, revenue is not recognized until we can objectively demonstrate that the software or service can meet the acceptance criteria, or the acceptance period lapses, whichever occurs earlier. If a software license arrangement obligates us to deliver specified future products or upgrades, the revenue is recognized when the specified future product or upgrades are delivered, or when the obligation to deliver specified future products expires, whichever occurs earlier. If a software license arrangement obligates us to deliver unspecified future products, then revenue is recognized on the subscription basis, ratably over the term of the contract.

License revenue derived from sales to resellers or OEM’s who purchase our products for future resale is recognized upon sufficient evidence that the products have been sold to the ultimate end users provided all other revenue recognition criteria have been met.

Technical support revenue, included in product support and other services revenue, is derived from providing technical support and software updates and upgrades to customers. Technical support revenue is recognized ratably over the term of the contract, which in most cases is one year. Revenue from consulting and education services is recognized as the services are performed.

Amounts collected prior to satisfying the above revenue recognition criteria are included in deferred revenue and advance payments in the accompanying consolidated balance sheets.

The application of SOP 97-2, as amended, requires judgment, including a determination that collectibility is reasonably assured, the fee is fixed and determinable and whether a software arrangement includes multiple elements, and if so, whether vendor-specific objective evidence of fair value exists for those elements. Judgment is also required to assess whether future releases of certain software represent new products or upgrades and enhancements to existing products. MicroStrategy’s ability to enter into revenue generating transactions and recognize revenue in the future is subject to a number of business and economic risks discussed below under “Risk Factors.”

Restructuring and Impairment Charges.    Restructuring and impairment charges have been recorded in accordance with Emerging Issues Task Force (“EITF”) Issue No. 94-3, “Liability Recognition for Certain Employee Termination Benefits and Other Costs to Exit an Activity (including Certain Costs Incurred in a Restructuring),” and SFAS No. 144, “Accounting for the Impairment or Disposal of Long-Lived Assets.” In determining the costs associated with real estate lease losses from exiting facilities, management was required to make judgments and estimates which significantly impacted the recorded amount of restructuring and impairment charges. The real estate lease losses included estimates of sublease commission costs, sub-tenant concession costs, sublease rental income and the expected length of time to sublease idle space. Final results

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could substantially differ from current estimates if we are unable to sublet the remaining vacant office space for the remaining periods under current real estate leases on the estimated terms. As a result of restructuring plans adopted in 2001, we have approximately 77,000 square feet of office space that we currently did not occupy. As of December 31, 2004, all of the 77,000 square feet that we do not occupy had been subleased.

Litigation and Contingencies.    We are subject to the possibility of various loss contingencies arising in the ordinary course of business. We consider the likelihood of loss or impairment of an asset or the incurrence of a liability, as well as our ability to reasonably estimate the amount of loss in determining loss contingencies. An estimated loss contingency is accrued when it is probable that an asset has been impaired or a liability has been incurred and the amount of loss can be reasonably estimated. We regularly evaluate current information available to us to determine whether such accruals should be adjusted.

We are involved in lawsuits with Business Objects, S.A. and Business Objects Americas, Inc. relating to claims involving patent infringement and other intellectual property claims. The outcome of this litigation is not presently determinable, and as such, we are currently unable to estimate the potential range of gain or loss, if any, relating to these actions. Accordingly, no provision for these matters has been made in the accompanying consolidated financial statements. Additional information regarding these matters is included below under “Risk Factors.”

We are also involved in other legal proceedings through the normal course of business. Management believes that any unfavorable outcome related to these other proceedings will not have a material effect on our financial position, results of operations or cash flows.

Allowance for Doubtful Accounts.    We maintain an allowance for doubtful accounts based on our assessment of the collectibility of specific customer accounts and the aging of our accounts receivable. In determining the collectibility of specific customer accounts, management is required to make judgments based on information known about each account.

Software Development Costs.    We account for software development costs in accordance with SFAS No. 86, “Accounting for the Costs of Computer Software to Be Sold, Leased, or Otherwise Marketed.” SFAS No. 86 specifies that software development costs incurred internally should be expensed as incurred until technological feasibility has been established. Once technological feasibility has been established, all software development costs should be capitalized until the product is available for general release to customers. Judgment is required in determining when the technological feasibility of a product is established. We consider technological feasibility to be achieved when a product design and working model of the software product have been completed.

Deferred Taxes.    We record a valuation allowance to reduce our deferred tax assets to the amount that is more likely than not to be realized. We consider future taxable income and ongoing tax planning strategies in assessing the need for a valuation allowance. During the year ending December 31, 2004, we recorded a net $138.4 million decrease in the valuation allowance related to changes in deferred tax assets and the reduction of valuation allowances on net operating loss carryforward tax assets and other deferred tax assets in the U.S. and certain foreign subsidiaries. Should we determine that we would not be able to realize all or part of net deferred tax assets in the future, an adjustment to deferred tax assets would reduce income in the period such determination was made. In determining net deferred tax assets and valuation allowances, management is required to make judgments and estimates related to projections of domestic and foreign profitability, the timing and extent of the utilization of net operating loss carryforwards, applicable tax rates, transfer pricing methodologies and prudent and feasible tax planning strategies.

Impairment of Long-Lived Assets.    We review long-lived assets, including intangible assets, for impairment annually or whenever events or changes in business circumstances indicate that the carrying amount of the assets may not be fully recoverable or that the useful lives of these assets are no longer appropriate. Each impairment test is based on a comparison of the undiscounted cash flows to the recorded value of the asset. Subsequent impairment assessments could result in future impairment charges. Any impairment charge would result in reductions in the carrying value of long-lived assets and would reduce our operating results in the period in which the charge arose.

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Accounting for Stock-based Compensation.    We account for our stock-based employee compensation plans under the recognition and measurement principles of Accounting Principles Board (“APB”) Opinion No. 25, “Accounting for Stock Issued to Employees,” and related interpretations. APB No. 25 provides that compensation expense relative to a company’s employee stock options is measured based on the intrinsic value of the stock options at the measurement date.

In December 2004, the FASB issued SFAS No. 123 (revised) (“SFAS No. 123R”), “Share-Based Payment”. SFAS No. 123R eliminates the intrinsic value method under APB No. 25 as an alternative method of accounting for stock- based awards. SFAS No. 123R also revises the fair value-based method of accounting for share-based payment liabilities, forfeitures and modifications of stock-based awards and clarifies the guidance of SFAS No. 123, “Accounting for Stock-based Compensation,” in several areas, including measuring fair value, classifying an award as equity or as a liability and attributing compensation cost to reporting periods. In addition, SFAS No. 123R amends SFAS No. 95, “Statement of Cash Flows,” to require that excess tax benefits be reported as a financing cash inflow rather than as a reduction of taxes paid, which is included within operating cash flows.

We are required to adopt SFAS No. 123R for the interim period beginning July 1, 2005, using one of three implementation alternatives specified under SFAS No. 123R. We are currently in the process of determining which implementation alternative to use and what the expected financial impact may be.

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Results of Operations

The following table sets forth for the periods indicated the percentage of total revenues represented by certain items reflected in our consolidated statements of operations: