Cognos

Cognos Incorporated

Company type	Public (until acquisition)
Industry	Software, Business intelligence, Performance management
Founded	1969 (1969)
Founder	Alan Rushforth, Peter Glenister
Defunct	2009 (2009)
Fate	Acquired by IBM
Headquarters	Ottawa , Canada
Area served	Worldwide (135 countries)
Key people	Michael U. Potter (CEO 1975–1995), Ron Zambonini (CEO from 1995)
Products	Business intelligence software, Performance management software, PowerHouse product suite (later sold to UNICOM)
Number of employees	3500
Parent	IBM (from 2008)

Cognos Incorporated was a software enterprise headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, focusing on solutions for business intelligence (BI) and performance management (PM). Established in 1969, the company expanded to employ nearly 3,500 staff members and provided services to more than 23,000 clients in 135 countries before being acquired by IBM on January 31, 2008. The Cognos name remains active within IBM’s portfolio of business intelligence and performance management offerings.

History

The origins of Cognos trace back to 1969 when Alan Rushforth and Peter Glenister founded the firm. Michael U. Potter joined the team in 1972 and held the CEO position from 1975 until 1995. Initially operating as a consulting service for the Canadian federal government, Cognos introduced its first software product, QUIZ, in 1979. During the economic downturn of the 1980s, the company transitioned its primary focus from consulting services to software product sales.

Initially called Quasar Systems Limited, the company adopted the Cognos name in 1982, inspired by the Latin term "cognosco," which translates to "knowledge from personal experience." Cognos became publicly traded in August 1986 on both the Toronto Stock Exchange (CSN) and NASDAQ (COGN). Its status as an independent entity concluded with IBM’s purchase in 2008.

Ron Zambonini assumed the CEO role in 1995 and implemented fresh marketing approaches. Although Cognos achieved success with BI products tailored for local area networks, it fell behind competitors in adopting emerging Internet technologies. The announcement of slowed growth triggered a significant decline in stock prices. To counter this challenge, Cognos pursued expansion of its web-based capabilities primarily through strategic acquisitions rather than internal development.

Key acquisitions comprised Applix (2007), Right Information Systems (4Thought), Interweave (Impromptu Web Query), Relational Matters (DecisionStream), Scientific Time Sharing Corporation (LEX2000), NoticeCast, Adaytum, Frango, DataBeacon, and Celequest.

In January 2010, IBM consolidated Cognos software with its recent acquisition of SPSS, establishing the Business Analytics division.

On December 31, 2013, UNICOM Systems purchased the PowerHouse product suite—including PowerHouse 4GL Server, Axiant® 4GL, and PowerHouse Web®—effectively removing these products from IBM’s catalog.

Federal investigation

In August 2007, Cognos received a $13 million contract from the Massachusetts Information Technology Division for performance management software after previously securing a $4.5 million contract in 2006 from the Massachusetts Department of Education. These agreements underwent scrutiny by the State Ethics Commission and Inspector General Gregory Sullivan due to conflicts involving Massachusetts House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi and his accountant Richard Vitale.

The inquiry uncovered a $600,000 payment from former Cognos sales executive Joseph Lally to Vitale’s firm, WN Advisors, which was not registered as a state lobbyist and failed to disclose these transactions. Most payments aligned with state fund distributions related to the contracts. Consequently, the state canceled these contracts, and IBM—Cognos’ parent company—reimbursed the $13 million that had been awarded improperly. Additionally, attorney Steven Topazio received a two-year retainer worth $5,000 monthly connected to DiMasi; this agreement ended when the second Cognos contract was granted.

Further violations included Vitale arranging a mortgage for DiMasi below market value, breaching state ethics regulations. On December 17, 2008, federal authorities joined the investigation with a grand jury examining potential breaches of federal law. On June 2, 2009, indictments were issued against DiMasi, Vitale, Lally, and Cognos lobbyist Richard McDonough on several corruption-related charges.

Acquisition of Cognos by IBM

In November 2007, during a period marked by industry consolidation following SAP's purchase of Business Objects and Oracle's acquisition of Hyperion Solutions, IBM declared its intent to acquire Cognos for $4.9 billion. Cognos functioned as a wholly owned subsidiary under IBM until January 1, 2009, when it was merged into IBM’s Software Group as part of the Infosphere product suite. Today, the software is branded as IBM Cognos Analytics and IBM Planning Analytics.

BI market

With the purchase of Cognos and other business intelligence providers, IBM emerged as a leading BI "megavendor," standing alongside Oracle, Microsoft, and SAP. This consolidation streamlines vendor management for customers but introduces challenges related to integration and client support. Gartner has noted that post-acquisition difficulties have contributed to decreased "customer experience" scores for both IBM Cognos and SAP Business Objects. Following this wave of mergers, only a handful of independent "pure-play" BI vendors remain, with SAS and MicroStrategy being the most prominent.

Products

At the IBM Insight conference in Las Vegas on October 26, 2015, IBM unveiled a revamped user interface for its premier Cognos Business Intelligence platform. The release of Version 11, rebranded as IBM Cognos Analytics and succeeding Cognos BI 10.x, incorporated self-service capabilities inspired by Watson Analytics and introduced enhanced contextual search functionality.

On October 25, 2010, Rob Ashe—IBM’s general manager for business analytics and former CEO of Cognos—presented IBM Cognos 10 at the Business Analytics Forum in Las Vegas. This iteration upgraded from Cognos 8 BI by integrating social collaboration features with analytics to provide real-time insights accessible through web browsers and mobile devices such as iPad, iPhone, and BlackBerry.

Originally launched in September 2005, IBM Cognos 8 BI consolidated functionalities from earlier products including ReportNet, PowerPlay, Metrics Manager, NoticeCast, and DecisionStream. It was available in Express and Extended editions. Core modules included:

• Report Studio – advanced web-based report creation
• Query Studio – ad hoc reporting with immediate data visualization
• Analysis Studio – exploration of multi-dimensional cube data
• Metric Studio – tracking and reporting on key performance indicators
• Metric Designer – creation and management of metrics
• Event Studio – event-triggered alerts for decision-makers
• Framework Manager – semantic metadata modeling tool
• PowerPlay Studio (previously PowerPlay Web)
• Analytic Applications – packaged BI solutions built on an extensible framework

Introduced in September 2009, IBM Cognos Express catered to midmarket organizations by combining BI and planning tools:

• Express Reporter – self-service reporting with ad hoc querying capabilities
• Express Advisor – flexible analysis and data visualization
• Express Xcelerator – TM1-driven planning accessible via Excel and web interfaces

Previously, IBM Cognos provided application development solutions that were subsequently divested to UNICOM Global:

• PowerHouse 4GL
• PowerHouse Web
• Axiant 4GL

Currently, IBM Cognos Analytics offers a free trial version for prospective users.