Cognos

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Cognos, an IBM company

Type	Subsidiary (of IBM)
Founded	1969
Headquarters	Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Key people	Rob Ashe, GM, Cognos products, Software Group Division, IBM
Industry	Business Intelligence, Operational Business Intelligence,Performance Management,Workforce Analytics
Products	Cognos 8 BI; Cognos 8 Planning; Cognos 8 Controller; Cognos Now!; Cognos 8 Workforce Performance; Cognos Go! Family
Revenue	$979.26 million USD (2007)
Employees	3,507 (2007)
Website	http://www.cognos.com

Cognos (formerly Cognos Incorporated, now part of IBM) is an Ottawa, Ontario based company that makes business intelligence (BI) and performance management software. Founded in 1969, Cognos employed almost 3,500 people and served more than 23,000 customers in over 135 countries. Cognos was originally known as Quasar and adopted its current name in 1982. On January 31, 2008, Cognos was officially acquired by IBM.^[1]

Cognos 8 BI, which was launched in September 2005, combines the features of several previous products: ReportNet, PowerPlay, Metrics Manager, Noticecast, and Decision Stream.

Contents 1 Acquisitions made by Cognos 2 Products 3 Federal investigation 4 Awards 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Acquisitions made by Cognos

In September 2007, Cognos announced that it would be acquiring Applix.^[2] It had previously acquired 4Thought, Relational Matters, LEX2000, DecisionStream, NoticeCast, Adaytum, Frango, Databeacon and Celequest, an Operational Intelligence company.

[edit] Products

• Business Intelligence
  • IBM Cognos 8 BI
    • Analysis Studio (Explore data to answer business questions)
    • Report Studio (Professional Report Authoring)
    • Query Studio (Ad Hoc Report Authoring)
    • Metric Studio (Monitor, Analyze, and Report on KPI)
    • Power Play Studio (formerly Power Play Web)
  • IBM Cognos Now! Monitor
• Extend BI
  • IBM Cognos 8 BI - Event Studio (Action based agents notify decision makers as events happen)
  • IBM Cognos Go! Search
  • IBM Cognos Go! Office
  • IBM Cognos Go! Mobile
  • IBM Cognos PowerPlay Transformer
  • IBM Cognos 8 Data Manager (formerly DecisionStream)
• Financial Performance Management
  • IBM Cognos 8 Planning
    • Cognos Analyst
    • Cognos Contributor
  • IBM Cognos 8 Controller
  • IBM Cognos TM1 (formerly Applix TM1)
  • IBM Cognos TM1 Executive Viewer (formerly Applix TM1 Executive Viewer and Temtec's Executive Viewer)
  • IBM Cognos Finance (formerly LEX2000)
  • IBM Cognos 8 Business Viewpoint (dimension management tool released November 27, 2008)
• IBM Cognos Series 7
  • IBM Cognos PowerPlay for Windows
  • IBM Cognos PowerPlay Web
  • IBM Cognos PowerPlay Transformer
  • IBM Cognos 7 Impromptu
  • IBM Cognos 7 Impromptu Web Reports
  • IBM Cognos 7 Decision Stream
  • IBM Cognos 7 NoticeCast
• Performance Applications
  • Cognos Performance Applications for Oracle Apps
  • Cognos Performance Applications for SAP
  • Cognos Performance Applications for PeopleSoft
• Analytic Applications
  • IBM Cognos 8 Workforce Performance
  • IBM Cognos 8 Finance

[edit] Federal investigation

In August 2007, the Massachusetts state Information Technology Division awarded Cognos a $13 million dollar contract for performance management software. This followed a 2006 $4.5 million dollar 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, which did not own Cognos when these contracts went into place, has refunded all paid monies and is cooperating with the state investigations. 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.^[3]

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.^[4]

[edit] Awards

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.^[5]

Recently, Cognos has 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.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official site