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.

Products

On October 26, 2015, at the IBM Insight conference in Las Vegas, IBM leadership announced a redesigned user experience for its flagship Cognos Business Intelligence software. The redesign will be version 11 and an upgrade from Cognos Business Intelligence 10.x. The differentiation in the version 11 release also required renaming to IBM Cognos Analytics, based on the same self-service design principles as Watson Analytics. The redesigned Cognos product also features smarter search that works in-context.

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:

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:

IBM Cognos also offered several application development tools (which IBM later sold to UNICOM Global):

IBM Cognos Analytics also currently offers a free trial[18]

Report Studio (Professional report authoring tool formatted for the web)

Query Studio (Ad hoc report authoring tool with instant data preview)

Analysis Studio (Explore multidimensional 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]

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 PowerHouse 4GL

IBM Cognos PowerHouse Web

IBM Cognos Axiant 4GL

type	Brand (of IBM)
fate	Acquired
foundation	1969
founder	Alan Rushforth Peter Glenister
defunct	2009
location	Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
key people	Rob Ashe, General Manager, IBM Business Analytics
industry	Software
products	Business intelligence Data visualization Analytics
homepage	Official website

History

Federal investigation

Acquisition of Cognos by IBM

BI market

Products

External links

References