Blog: Claudia Imhoff

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The Other Shoe Finally Drops - IBM Buys Cognos

A few minutes ago I got the news that IBM had just bought Cognos. There has been so much speculation about this purchase after Hyperion and Business Objects were bought that it almost was anti-climatic. What does this mean for BI? Well, I have a few thoughts...

My friend, Stephanie Clark (IBM Analyst Relations) sent me the press release just . Cognos snagged $5 billion from IBM as its price tag - heady money but well spent, I believe. IBM now has a complete end to end solution - it is a one stop shop for everything BI. A top notch BI tool was the only thing missing in their offering and now they have one.

From the press release:

“This is an exciting combination for our customers, partners, and employees. It provides us with the ability to expand our vision as the leading BI and Performance Management provider,” said Rob Ashe, president and chief executive officer, Cognos. “IBM is a perfect complement to our strategy, with minimal overlap in products, a broad range of technology synergies, and the resources, reach, and world-class services to accelerate this vision. Furthermore, this combination allows Cognos customers to leverage a broader set of solutions from IBM to advance their information management driven initiatives.”

Wow -- that leaves Microstrategy and SAS as the last of the original big name BI companies standing. Hyperion now Oracle, Business Objects now SAP, and Cognos now IBM. It's been a wild ride these last few months.

It does open the space up though for the new entrants. Open source vendors like Actuate, JasperSoft, and Pentaho may find they are getting more attention. Software as a Service vendors like LucidEra and Xactly may see that the forest of BI tools has been thinned a bit and they are now getting some much needed sunlight. We'll see -- IBM is certainly one fierce competitor and they now have one of the best BI and BPM tools on the market.

Yours in BI success,

Claudia

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