Global Partner Community Supports IBM Acquisition Of Cognos

Business Intelligence BI Software : Global Partner Community Supports IBM Acquisition Of Cognos

New York, NY– February 6, 2008–Alliance, technology and channel partners worldwide expressed their support of IBM’s acquisition of Cognos in statements following the January 31, 2008 announcement regarding the completion of the purchase of Cognos by IBM (NYSE: IBM).

“This is an exciting time for Cognos and IBM partners as our opportunities to innovate and collaborate grow significantly.” said Mel Zeledon, Senior Vice President, Global Alliances, Cognos, an IBM Company. “As part of IBM we have the ability to expand our vision as the leading BI and Performance Management provider, allow our partner base to both leverage a broader set of solutions from IBM and enable open interoperability with multiple non-IBM technologies, solutions and services in heterogeneous environments, in order to advance information management driven initiatives for their customers”

Global partners resoundingly support of the IBM acquisition of Cognos:

Alliance Partners

Capgemini
“Through a collaborative partnership and global alliance Capgemini and Cognos bring together global management and IT consulting experience as well as leading business intelligence and performance management solutions. We welcome the acquisition of Cognos by IBM and will continue to leverage our mutual expertise to deliver the guidance, strategy, and implementation projects that move organizations toward better business decisions company-wide. We believe that this merger brings together two of the leaders in the Business Intelligence space and the integration of technologies will strengthen Cognos' ability to win in this highly competitive market.”
Scott Barnes, Vice President, Business Intelligence, Capgemini

Deloitte
“Deloitte Consulting and Cognos have developed an Alliance to help our clients around the world achieve their business intelligence and performance management objectives. With the addition of Cognos to IBM's information management portfolio, we can look forward to continued collaboration and joint momentum with both IBM and Cognos to help our clients reach their goals.”
Bob Dalton, a principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP and Deloitte's IBM Alliance leader

Satyam Computer Services
“To help our clients manage their performance and intelligence needs so that they are better able to extract greater value from their processes and market endeavors, we’ve been working extensively using strong analytics and business management capabilities. Cognos has been a formidable ally in this pursuit. The Cognos acquisition increases IBM’s ability to provide a significantly enhanced and integrated platform. We are convinced our clients will benefit from the synergy leverage these merged capabilities will provide.”
Shailesh F.Shah, Chief Strategy Officer, Satyam Computer Services

Tata Consultancy Services
“TCS shares the Cognos vision for making business intelligence a mainstream and pervasive technology. As a charter member of the Cognos Partner program and a premium System Integrator to IBM Alliances, we combine mutual strengths and capabilities to deliver business value to the market. We are excited about this acquisition and look forward to continued collaboration in opportunity creation and best-in-class delivery."
Dr. Santosh Mohanty, Global Director and Practice Head,
Business Intelligence & Performance Management, TCS.

Teradata
"Teradata and Cognos have been partners for more than 10 years. Together, we provide our customers a flexible and comprehensive performance management solution, including strategic and operational BI as well as enterprise planning solutions. Looking ahead, we expect to continue expanding our partnership to provide mutual customers with a broad range of expertise in end-to-end analytics solutions. It is partnerships like this that will validate and grow our respective leadership positions in the forefront of the analytics industry."
Darryl McDonald, Chief Marketing Officer, Teradata Corporation.

Technology Partners

Appfluent
“As an existing technology partner of IBM, delivering comprehensive data warehouse lifecycle management solutions and of Cognos, delivering analytical applications for enterprise IT via the Cognos 8 BI platform, Appfluent is enthusiastic about the combination that the joining of these companies brings to the market. We’re eager to continue our technology integration and work with them to advance information management driven initiatives for our joint customers.”
Frank Gelbart, CEO, Appfluent

BrightStar Partners
“As a long standing Cognos Platinum services and reseller partner and Powered by Cognos solution provider, BrightStar Partners is passionate about Cognos as a company and as a solution to Performance Management, and are dedicated to supporting their vision through implementation and software sales under the IBM fold.”
Neil Morgan, President, BrightStar Partners Inc.

Clarabridge
"As a leading provider of text analytics, our OEM partnership with Cognos lets joint customers use Cognos BI to tap into rich customer experiences and insights contained in unstructured data. We are excited to move forward with our partnership initiatives with Cognos under IBM and see the combination as valuable to the information management market."
Sid Banerjee, CEO, Clarabridge

RIM
“As a technology partner of both IBM and Cognos, RIM is pleased to continue our collaboration with the companies now that they have united. Together we will continue to help customers improve mobile productivity and organizational workflow through enhanced wireless access to a wide range of business applications. In particular, the extension of SOA components to the BlackBerry platform is making it easier for our mutual customers to access and input information remotely and we look forward to further leveraging this powerful architecture to support the evolving needs of the mobile workforce.”
Jeff McDowell, Vice President, Global Alliances, Research In Motion

North America Partners

CBH
“As a powered by Cognos solutions provider and long time Cognos Partner we are pleased to see the teaming of two leaders in information management and performance management. We fully anticipate continued success in accelerating our customers’ performance management initiatives as part of the IBM partner community.”
Joe Baird, President NA, Parson Consulting

Creeth-Richman
“IBM’s acquisition of Cognos is a powerful testament to the validation and growth of the performance management sector. As a long-time Cognos partner, we and our clients have benefited from the company’s innovative, best-of-breed technologies as well as its commitment to support and service. Moving into this new era of performance management, we will fully leverage Cognos and IBM’s joint expertise and platform openness to help our clients find and implement creative solutions to their business problems, while providing reliable support and a relationship built on trust.”
Richard Creeth, President, Creeth, Richman & Associates, Inc.

Grant Thornton
“Cognos clearly has strong financial performance management and reporting solutions today, and with the acquisition by IBM we expect these offerings to be sustained and enhanced by IBM’s software strength in information management.”
Hank Steininger, Managing Partner, Grant Thornton

ISA Consulting
“IBM’s acquisition of Cognos combines one of the largest business software powerhouses with a world-leading performance management software company. The strategic move will only further strengthen the suite of solutions offered by both vendors. We are excited about this venture and how it will enhance the Cognos performance management solutions to meet the increasing demands of current and future ISA customers.”
Lou Polisano, CEO, ISA Consulting

Revelwood
“As a company that provides performance management solutions that enable companies to predict, measure, evaluate and impact business performance, we are very enthusiastic about our partner, Cognos, becoming part of IBM. With IBM’s performance management partner initiative already in place, we are confident that our partnership with Cognos - supported by IBM – will remain strong, providing each company with additional opportunities in the future.”
Kenneth Wolf, CEO, Revelwood

EMEA Partners

Eniac
“Eniac has been a proud IBM Premier Business Partner for 30 years, an IBM SOA Specialty Partner as well as a Cognos Certified solutions partner for a decade, and more recently a Cognos Platinum Reseller partner. We attest to the value that the combined companies bring to the information management space and will work readily with the expanded team to continue delivering winning solutions and services our customers to achieve performance management excellence.”
Bert Vrielink, Director, Eniac Business Intelligence

Inca Software
“As a leading reseller of Cognos software and services in the UK, Inca welcomes the acquisition of Cognos by IBM and the opportunities for collaboration and innovation this joining will deliver. We are committed to continuing to providing the full range of Cognos solutions and the skills to implement and support effective planning and business intelligence applications.”
Chris Kerrison, CEO, Inca Software

Asia-Pacific Partners

CDP Group
“We believe that the combination of these two great companies will bring both compelling vision and execution to the performance management market. We are now able to offer our New Zealand customers and prospects an extremely enhanced and vibrant outlook, with stronger and more innovative solutions, that can revolutionize their operational effectiveness.”
Allen Keyte, Director, CDP Group

Cortell Group
“Cortell is pleased to join the broad IBM-Cognos ecosystem based on our considerable experience in building a customer base that has come to rely on Cognos TM1. We applaud this advancement in performance management by teaming two industry leaders and we look forward to continuing to build our practice on IBM Cognos proven solutions.”
Ernest Glad, CEO, Cortell Group

Focus Strategies & Solutions
“As a leading Cognos partner, Focus is delighted about the opportunities that the IBM acquisition brings to our organization. We see this exciting development as a real vehicle for growth and expansion of our business, particularly from the perspective of end-to-end Information Management solutions and services. We can deepen our relationships with our accounts and provide them with a comprehensive offering that is second to none. We feel that the combination of the two organizations is really synergistic, with minimal overlap, and will bring enormous benefit to us and more importantly, to our customers.”
Tom Reich, Managing Director, Focus Strategies & Solutions

Additional Partner Statements in Support of IBM’s acquisition of Cognos can be found at www.cognos.com/news/releases/2008/0206-quotes.html.

About Cognos, an IBM company
Cognos, an IBM company, is the world leader in business intelligence and performance management solutions. It provides world-class enterprise planning and BI software and services to help companies plan, understand and manage financial and operational performance. Cognos was acquired by IBM in January 2008. For more information visit http://www.ibm.com/software/data/ and http://www.cognos.com.

Source: http://www.cognos.com/news/releases/2008/0206.html