Vendor Portfolio Guide: IBM Cognos

IBM is taking a hands-off approach to Cognos

You can contact the author, Barney Finucane, by e-mail if you have any comments, observations or user experiences to add. Last updated on April 30th, 2010.

Contents

Introduction

Cognos studios

IBM Cognos Express

Planning

SPSS

Cognos PowerPlay

IBM Cognos Analytic Applications

Looking ahead – Cognos 9

Conclusions

Introduction

Cognos was founded in 1969 as Quasar in Ottawa, Canada. IBM acquired Cognos in a deal that was announced in 2007 but not officially sealed until January 31, 2008. Just two months before the takeover by IBM, Cognos acquired Applix, and with it the multidimensional database TM1. Cognos remained a wholly-owned subsidiary referred to as “an IBM company” for a year and was the brought into the Information Management group. The main branding change has been to prefix all Cognos product names with IBM.

The product management policies at IBM have been a continuation of the policies Cognos pursued as an independent company. The main difficulties Cognos was confronted with internally resulted from decisions such as the acquisition of a planning tool and the abrupt shift in architecture that came in 2003. However, in September 2009 IBM launched IBM Cognos Express, an attempt to target the mid-market by combining features from Cognos and TM1. In January 2010 IBM acquired the analysis specialist SPSS.

Cognos studios

Cognos 8 BI arose as an extension of Cognos ReportNet. ReportNet was a Web-based reporting tool aimed at the enterprise customer that was a complete break with the PowerPlay and Impromptu tool set that had made Cognos so successful in the nineties. The most important vehicle Cognos uses to explain Cognos 8 BI is the studios. The suite is presented as a unified platform which accesses data using common semantic layer and provides end users with a suite of interoperable and visually homogenous tools. Many BI vendors claim to do the same, but Cognos is exceptional in that, to a certain extent, this is actually true.

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