Business Intelligence Software Vendors - Cognos

Cognos

With the release of Cognos 8, Cognos significantly improved its BI platform, particularly from an integrated infrastructure standpoint and by creating a single BI metadata model to support multiple capabilities such as reporting, ad hoc query, OLAP, event notification and scorecards. Initial adoption of Cognos 8 got off to a slow start at the beginning of 2006, due to support and migration issues, as well as lengthy sales cycles. However, by the end of 2006, Cognos was able to point to over 2,900 supported Cognos 8 customers and had closed 34 enterprise deals, worth over $1 million each. Anecdotal evidence suggests that a large number of Cognos customers are comfortable with their Series 7 and ReportNet installations, and are patiently evaluating their potential next move to Cognos 8 as part of an enterprisewide BI standardization. The elongated sales cycle leaves Cognos, like other pure plays, vulnerable to the changing competitive dynamics of the market, particularly to the improvements made by Microsoft, Oracle and SAP.

On a positive note, 2006 saw the launch of Cognos' industry-specific Performance Blueprints — prepackaged data models and business content that give organizations a quick start when building BI applications. These vertically specific blueprints will prove to be a useful product offering for Cognos by adding value and sustaining margins in a market that is reaching parity in many areas. While the recent acquisition of Celequest opens new market opportunities to Cognos with better event-level monitoring, the need to integrate third-party vendor code will hamper its message about a fully integrated BI platform sold as a single product. Cognos also needs to articulate how it will map Celequest technology to its existing event management capabilities. To maintain its leadership position in 2007, Cognos must execute on its strategy to upsell Cognos 8 as part of a broader, more pervasive vision of BI to its installed base.

Source: http://mediaproducts.gartner.com/reprints/oracle/145507.html