Cognos

Cognos (Cognos Incorporated) was an Ottawa, Ontario-based company making business intelligence (BI) and performance management (PM) software. Founded in 1969, at its peak Cognos employed almost 3,500 people and served more than 23,000 customers in over 135 countries until being acquired by IBM on January 31, 2008.^[1] While no longer an independent company, the Cognos name continues to be applied to IBM's line of business intelligence and performance management products.

History

Cognos was founded in 1969 by Alan Rushforth and Peter Glenister.^[2] Michael U. Potter joined Cognos in 1972, and was its Chief Executive Officer from 1975 until 1995.^[3] It began as a consulting company for the Canadian federal government and offered its first software product, QUIZ, in 1979. During the Canadian recession in the 1980s, Cognos shifted its focus from consulting to software sales.

Originally Quasar Systems Limited, it adopted the Cognos name in 1982. Cognos is a fragment scissored off the Latin word "cognosco," which means "knowledge from personal experience".^[4] Cognos became a public company in August 1986 trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange as CSN and on the NASDAQ as COGN. Its independent existence ended on January 31, 2008, when Cognos was officially acquired by IBM.^[5]

In 1995, Ron Zambonini was named CEO and brought new marketing strategies. Cognos grew successful with its business intelligence products for local area networks (LAN), but new Internet technologies had come into the BI industry faster than the company had anticipated. After Cognos issued a notice informing shareholders of a slowdown in growth, many sold their shares, causing prices to fall quickly.^[6]

This prompted Cognos to build its web technology through the acquisition of other companies rather than internal research and development. In September 2007, Cognos announced that it would be acquiring Applix.^[7] It had previously acquired Right Information Systems (4Thought), Interweave (Impromptu Web Query), Relational Matters (DecisionStream), LEX2000, NoticeCast, Adaytum, Frango, DataBeacon, and Celequest, an operational intelligence company.

In January 2010, as part of a reorganization of IBM Software Group, Cognos software and software from recently acquired SPSS were brought together to create the Business Analytics division.

On December 31, 2013, UNICOM Systems, Inc. a Division of UNICOM Global acquired the Powerhouse product line including PowerHouse 4GL Server, Axiant® 4GL and PowerHouse Web®,^[8] so Powerhouse products would no longer be part of the IBM product set.

Federal investigation

In August 2007, the Massachusetts state Information Technology Division awarded Cognos a $13 million contract for performance management software. This followed a 2006 $4.5 million state contract awarded to Cognos by the Massachusetts Department of Education. These contracts came under scrutiny from the State Ethics Commission and the office of state Inspector General Gregory Sullivan when several conflicts of interest surrounding Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives Salvatore DiMasi and his accountant Richard Vitale came to light.

In the course of these investigations, a payoff from former Cognos sales executive Joseph Lally in the amount of $600,000 was found to have been made to Vitale's company WN Advisors. Vitale and WN Advisors were not registered as state lobbyists and did not disclose the payments, the bulk of which were apparently made on the same day that the state wired funds for the multimillion dollar contracts to Cognos. The disposition of the funds has not been disclosed and the State has rescinded the contracts. IBM, who now owns Cognos, has refunded the improperly awarded $13 million paid to Cognos.^[9] A second close associate of DiMasi's, lawyer Steven Topazio, was placed on a two year $5,000 a month retainer for unspecified purposes. This retainer stopped the same month as the second Cognos contract was awarded.^[10]

In addition to the payoffs made to close associates of DiMasi, it is known that Vitale helped arrange a below-market mortgage for DiMasi, which violated state Ethics laws.

On December 17, 2008, the Boston Globe confirmed that the State investigations were being joined by a Federal Grand Jury probe investigating the allegations and potential violations of Federal law. On June 2, 2009, DiMasi, Vitale, Lally, and Cognos lobbyist Richard McDonough were indicted "on a battery of...corruption charges" as a result of that probe.^[11]

Acquisition of Cognos by IBM

In 2007, following SAP’s acquisition of Business Objects and Oracle’s acquisition of Hyperion Solutions,^[12] IBM announced its acquisition of Cognos in November for $4.9 billion.^[13] It continued to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary (Cognos, an IBM company) until January 1, 2009, when it was absorbed into IBM Infosphere product line under IBM Information Management Software brand within the company's Software Group. The software is now called "Cognos Business Intelligence and Financial Performance Management" or Cognos BI and FPM.

BI market

IBM's purchase of Cognos and other business intelligence software vendors was a step in establishing IBM as a BI "megavendor" (along with Oracle, Microsoft, and SAP). This consolidation may prove beneficial for customers to have fewer vendors to deal with, but this raises concerns about integration of the software as more vendors are bought out by the big four. Another challenge is maintaining the same level of customer service. Gartner interprets the lower ratings given in "customer experience" for IBM Cognos and SAP Business Objects as a result of post-acquisition issues.^[14] Due to many consolidations in the BI industry, there are only a few independent "pure-play" vendors remaining (SAS and MicroStrategy being the largest).^[15]

Products

On October 25, 2010, at the Business Analytics Forum in Las Vegas, IBM General Manager for Business Analytics and former Cognos CEO Rob Ashe announced IBM Cognos 10.^[16] A significant upgrade to IBM Cognos 8 BI, this new software brings together social collaboration and analytics for business users to gain real-time intelligence in a single, user-friendly interface — online or through mobile devices such as iPad, iPhone and BlackBerry devices.

IBM Cognos 8 BI, initially launched in September 2005, combined the features of several previous products, including ReportNet, PowerPlay, Metrics Manager, NoticeCast, and DecisionStream. There are also Express and Extended versions of Cognos 8 BI. Full features:

• Report Studio (Professional report authoring tool formatted for the web)
• Query Studio (Ad hoc report authoring tool with instant data preview)
• Analysis Studio (Explore multi-dimensional cube data to answer business questions)
• Metric Studio (Monitor, analyze, and report on KPIs)
• Metric Designer (Define, load, and maintain metrics to be available in Metric Studio)
• Event Studio (Action based agents to notify decision makers as events happen)
• Framework Manager (Semantic metadata layer tool which creates models or packages)
• PowerPlay Studio (formerly PowerPlay Web)
• Analytic Applications (Packaged BI Applications, built on an adaptable platform and extensible into Business Analytics) ^[17]

IBM Cognos Express, launched in September 2009, is an integrated business intelligence and planning solution purpose-built to meet the needs of midsize companies. The features of Express are:

• Cognos Express Reporter (Self-service reporting and ad hoc query)
• Cognos Express Advisor (Freeform analysis and visualization)
• Cognos Express Xcelerator (TM1-based planning and business analysis, with Microsoft Excel and web interfaces)

IBM Cognos also offers several Application Development Tools:

• IBM Cognos PowerHouse 4GL
• IBM Cognos PowerHouse Web
• IBM Cognos Axiant 4GL

Recognition

IBM Cognos 8 BI has won numerous awards including the eWEEK Excellence Award in Analytics and Reporting, the LOTUS ADVISOR "Editor's Choice" Award, and TechTarget's SearchCRM.com 2005 Product of the Year.

In 2007, Cognos was named one of Canada's Top 100 Employers, as published in Maclean's magazine, one of only a handful of software development companies to receive this honour.^[18]

Prior to being acquired, Cognos had been named to the InformationWeek 500, chosen as one of START-IT Magazine's "Hottest Companies of 2006" and won "Best of Information On Demand Showcase" as part of the IBM Information Management Awards.

Cognos, now as IBM Cognos Software, continues to rank in the Leaders quadrant of Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence.^[19]

References

External links

• Official site