IBM and Cognos announced yesterday that the two companies have entered into a definitive agreement for IBM to acquire Cognos, a publicly-held company based in Ottawa, Ontario, in an all-cash transaction for approximately $5 billion (USD) or $58 USD per share, with a net transaction value of $4.9 billion. The acquisition is subject to Cognos shareholder approval, regulatory approvals, and other customary closing conditions. It is expected to close in the first quarter of 2008.
The acquisition of Cognos supports IBM's information-on-demand strategy, a cross-company initiative announced in February 2006 that combines IBM's strength in information integration, content and data management, and business consulting services to unlock the business value of information. Integrating Cognos, the 23rd IBM acquisition in support of its information-on-demand strategy, will enable new business insights to be delivered to a broader set of people across an organization, beyond the traditional users of business intelligence, the company said.
IBM said the acquisition fits squarely within both its acquisition strategy and capital allocation model, and that it will contribute to the achievement of the company’s objective for earnings-per-share growth through 2010.
“Customers are demanding complete solutions, not piece parts, to enable real-time decision making," said Steve Mills, senior vice president and group executive, IBM Software Group. "IBM has been providing business intelligence solutions for decades. Our broad set of capabilities--from data warehousing to information integration and analytics--together with Cognos, position us well for the changing business intelligence and performance management industry. We chose Cognos because of its industry-leading technology that is based on open standards, which complements IBM's service oriented architecture strategy.”
Together, IBM and Cognos will become a leading provider of technology and services for business intelligence (BI) and performance management, the company said. They will deliver what IBM called the industry’s most complete, open standards-based platform with the broadest range of expertise to help companies expand the value of their information, optimize their business processes, and maximize performance across their enterprises.
The acquisition of Cognos accelerates IBM’s global information on demand initiative to unlock the business value of information for our customers. IBM will provide broader reach for Cognos solutions across multiple industries and geographies with a more complete set of offerings, including consulting services, hardware, and other middleware software.
IBM said that Cognos provides the only complete BI and performance management platform, fully integrated on an open-standards-based service oriented architecture (SOA), and has a strong history of supporting heterogeneous application environments, consistent with IBM’s approach. With Cognos, customers can turn data into actionable insight for coordinated, information-driven decision-making to improve overall performance. Cognos will also extend IBM’s reach further into the CFO office with powerful financial planning and consolidation capabilities.
“This is an exciting combination for our customers, partners, and employees. It provides us with the ability to expand our vision as the leading BI and performance management provider,” said Rob Ashe, president and chief executive officer, Cognos. “IBM is a perfect complement to our strategy, with minimal overlap in products, a broad range of technology synergies, and the resources, reach, and world-class services to accelerate this vision. Furthermore, this combination allows Cognos customers to leverage a broader set of solutions from IBM to advance their information management driven initiatives.”
Together, IBM and Cognos will expand IBM’s ability to provide customers with the right information they need when they need it, to optimize operational performance, and to quickly respond to changing market demands. The combination of IBM’s information management technology and Cognos will also help organizations discover new ways to use trusted information spread across their enterprises to identify new business opportunities and significantly reduce the expense and time required to address industry-specific business challenges.
Following completion of the acquisition, IBM intends to integrate Cognos as a group within IBM's Information Management Software division, focused on business intelligence and performance management. IBM also will appoint current Cognos President and CEO, Rob Ashe, to lead the group, reporting directly to General Manager Ambuj Goyal.
Cognos has approximately 4,000 employees worldwide and serves more than 25,000 customers. IBM and Cognos have partnered for more than 15 years, with extensive technical integrations and eight pre-integrated joint solutions already supporting many joint customers, such as New York City Police Department, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Tennessee, Canadian Tire, MetLife, and Bayer UK.
Other strategic acquisitions in support of IBM’s information on demand initiative include Princeton Softech (data archiving and compliance), FileNet (enterprise content management), Ascential Software (information integration), DataMirror (changed data capture), SRD (entity analytics), Trigo (product information management), DWL (customer information management) and Alphablox (analytics).
More information on IBM’s acquisition of Cognos is available on IBM’s investor Web site at: IBM Investor Viewpoint.
For more information about IBM’s Information on Demand strategy, go to: Information on Demand. Additional details about the combination of IBM and Cognos are available at: Cognos Acquision
For more information, visit the Cognos Web site at: Cognos.
More than ever, there is a demand for IT to deliver innovation. Your IBM i has been an essential part of your business operations for years. However, your organization may struggle to maintain the current system and implement new projects. The thousands of customers we've worked with and surveyed state that expectations regarding the digital footprint and vision of the company are not aligned with the current IT environment.
TRY the one package that solves all your document design and printing challenges on all your platforms. Produce bar code labels, electronic forms, ad hoc reports, and RFID tags – without programming! MarkMagic is the only document design and print solution that combines report writing, WYSIWYG label and forms design, and conditional printing in one integrated product. Make sure your data survives when catastrophe hits. Request your trial now! Request Now.
Forms of ransomware has been around for over 30 years, and with more and more organizations suffering attacks each year, it continues to endure. What has made ransomware such a durable threat and what is the best way to combat it? In order to prevent ransomware, organizations must first understand how it works.
Disaster protection is vital to every business. Yet, it often consists of patched together procedures that are prone to error. From automatic backups to data encryption to media management, Robot automates the routine (yet often complex) tasks of iSeries backup and recovery, saving you time and money and making the process safer and more reliable. Automate your backups with the Robot Backup and Recovery Solution. Key features include:
Business users want new applications now. Market and regulatory pressures require faster application updates and delivery into production. Your IBM i developers may be approaching retirement, and you see no sure way to fill their positions with experienced developers. In addition, you may be caught between maintaining your existing applications and the uncertainty of moving to something new.
IT managers hoping to find new IBM i talent are discovering that the pool of experienced RPG programmers and operators or administrators with intimate knowledge of the operating system and the applications that run on it is small. This begs the question: How will you manage the platform that supports such a big part of your business? This guide offers strategies and software suggestions to help you plan IT staffing and resources and smooth the transition after your AS/400 talent retires. Read on to learn:
LATEST COMMENTS
MC Press Online