Independent analyst firms continue to name Cognos as a leader in the corporate performance management (CPM) and business intelligence (BI) markets, with Forrester Research most recently adding its name to the list of credits.
These include Forrester, Gartner and Meta Group.
The findings of the Forrester report, Business Intelligence Platforms, May 2003, were based on Cognos`s strategy, market presence and current offering.
"This ranking is a testament to Cognos`s continued momentum in the BI market, the quality of our products and the strength of our CPM vision," says David McWilliam, MD of Cognos SA. "The fact that over 80% of our customers have shown tangible return on their investment is added proof of that."
In the Forrester Report, Cognos received top scores of 5.0 for a number of criteria, including:
* OLAP;
* Query and reporting;
* Real-time analytics;
* Functional analytic applications;
* Product integration;
* Data source integration;
* ETL;
* Product roadmap; and
* Installed base.
According to Gartner, Cognos recently advanced its position in the leadership quadrant of the research firm`s Business Intelligence Magic Quadrant, based on its completeness of vision position and ability to execute.
Meta Group`s new analyst report ranks Cognos as the leader in the BI market. According to Meta Group`s Business Intelligence METAspectrum market evaluation, Cognos has performed well against the competition and solidified its position as a front-runner in the BI market.
An independent study by Nucleus Research shows 80% of Cognos customers interviewed have achieved positive return on investment (ROI) from their deployment. The report found that customers saw increased productivity and revenues, while reducing operational costs.
Growth in the BI market is fuelled by what the Forrester report calls a new breed of BI software, which has arrived to solve user problems that include unnecessary software spending, excessive training, development and support, as well as multiple versions of the truth. Those problems arose from a multitude of tools connected to many different data sources within organisations.
The new software and solution to the problem is the BI platform. Vendors which in the past focused exclusively on analytical markets such as reporting or data storage have built, OEMed and bought software to turn their offerings into BI platforms that offer their customers a unified data layer, centralised tools and shared metrics.
Vendors have converged on this market from the reporting market, query tools, multidimensional analysis, infrastructure, business applications and out of the blue. The Forrester report indicates though, that vendors still have much work to do. In particular, database vendors need to improve their tools, BI veterans must enhance data mining and leaders in the market, such as Cognos, need to focus on functional depth.
That is why Cognos continues to increase research and development spend, last year investing $74 million in that area, up from $67 million in 2001. The company was also recently named a leader in business performance management according to a report from SPEX. The report credited Cognos for having technology and infrastructure in place to enable closed-loop business performance management. Most importantly, Cognos received an "outstanding" rating from SPEX for functionality, usability and overall technology and market strength.
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