As it promised last month (CI No 3,347), Relational Online Analytical Processing ROLAP vendor MicroStrategy Inc has expanded its European operations and opened an office in Italy to add to those in Germany, Benelux, Spain and France. The company says its decision was led by strong customer demand in the country. The opening will have considerable fanfare, with MicroStrategy chief executive Michael Saylor in town for the Milan celebrations on June 16th and a further ceremony on June 18th in Rome. The Italian office will be run by Andrea Delvo, former sales director at Informix Corp. MicroStrategy vehemently denied suggestions from the US banking community that one of its major European customers is dissatisfied its software, and that legal action had been mentioned (CI No 3,425). UK managing director Stewart Holness said there was absolutely no truth in that rumor at all. Last week, he said, the company had a major user conference, attended by some 500 customers, at which 32 of its European customers gave speeches about how they were using the software and what it has done for their business. Holness said he could state categorically that no customer anywhere in the world was contemplating any action whatsoever against the company.
