The new offerings extend IBM's end-to-end portfolio of Information on Demand software, hardware and services. 

These capabilities will extend IBM's ability to provide customers with the right information they need when they need it, along with key business insights to use for competitive advantage in response to changing market demands. "Today, Indian enterprises are fast approaching the technology maturity curve. These enterprises are now looking for ways to leverage their advanced IT systems and the vast pool of real-time data to stand out in their market. IBM is quickly capitalizing its acquisition of Cognos to help deliver this differentiator to clients, said Pradeep Nair, director, Software Group, IBM India/ SA.

"Thanks to our existing partnership with Cognos, common approach to open standards and complementary portfolios, we're hitting the ground running," said Steve Mills, senior vice president and group executive, IBM Software Group. "In the race to use information for real-time decision making, you not only need the right technology, but a global understanding of how information can be used to tackle tough business problems in dozens of industries.  The combination of Cognos and IBM software, hardware, business consulting expertise and research investments clearly separate us from competitors."

IBM's ability to seamlessly unite its portfolio with Cognos furthers its comprehensive, cross-company Information on Demand business strategy, which was launched in February 2006.  The Information on Demand strategy combines IBM's strengths in software, hardware, research and business consulting services to capture a pressing business opportunity aimed at helping clients better compete in the global economy.  

The new IBM offerings include 10 industry solutions that help customers turn information into a strategic asset.  These solutions include an expansion of the IBM Retail Integration Framework to incorporate Store Operations and Planning blueprints from Cognos that have been pre-integrated with IBM retail data models.

IBM also revealed several new products integrated with Cognos software, including:

• Cognos 8 BI "starter pack" for IBM InfoSphere Warehouse and distribution of InfoSphere Warehouse with Cognos 8 BI solutions, making it easier for clients to adopt complete business intelligence and data warehousing solutions that quickly generate a positive return on investment.
• Pre-integration of Cognos 8 with the industry-first IBM Information Server software platform to deliver seamless data integration and quality, and metadata integration to provide data lineage to track the basis for business decisions.
• Pre-configured templates for integrating Cognos 8 BI with IBM FileNet Business Process Management (BPM) software, enabling customers to use Cognos 8 BI reports and analytics to support critical business decisions.
• Pre-integration and bundling of an IBM Dashboard Accelerator "starter kit" with Cognos 8 BI for rapidly building portal-based, actionable dashboards that enable users to take action and initiate operational transactions based on reviews of key business metrics.  The Dashboard Accelerator will also now include the Cognos 8 BI "starter pack" along with a new Cognos builder, which will make it easy for users to create portal and dashboard components that include Cognos reports or analytics.

In addition, IBM Cognos 8 BI software will be included in C-Class Balanced Warehouse offerings, which provide pre-tested, scalable and fully-integrated system components of IBM data warehouse software, server and storage technologies.  The C-Class Balanced Warehouses offer small and medium-sized businesses a simple, complete solution for integrating and maintaining multiple data and information resources in a scalable and versatile data warehouse.

To help clients address their growing compliance, legal and governance challenges, IBM introduced the new IBM Compliance Warehouse for Legal Control comprising IBM software, hardware and services in a unified environment to enable organizations to achieve, sustain and prove compliance with multiple legal and compliance mandates while reducing cost, complexity and risk.  The ccombines a secure content repository, records management, content and email archiving, and classification capabilities, combined with Tivoli and Lotus software and IBM storage hardware to provide a cost-effective solution for reducing information risk and optimizing compliance and legal processes.  This offering also uses Cognos technology for monitoring, reporting and analyzing compliance-related content and processes.  

IBM is also announcing a new IOD Infrastructure Community of Practice within IBM Global Technology Services (GTS).  Established to build exchange and enable reuse of Information on Demand knowledge and assets, it helps develop new capabilities and share leading-edge thinking across IBM's software, business consulting, systems and Research organizations.  These new IBM services help clients plan, design and deploy a resilient infrastructure to deliver Information on Demand, while reducing risk and providing higher returns on IT investments. 

The joint IBM-Cognos products, solutions and services unveiled today provide an integrated approach to using information for competitive advantage.  They are based on IBM's extensive experience gained from thousands of Information on Demand customer engagements, as well as feedback from IBM researchers and numerous software and systems deployments. The new offerings will enable clients to rapidly make the most of their existing business information and manage an avalanche of emerging information sources.

With the addition of Cognos, IBM has become the leading provider of technology and services for business intelligence and performance management.  IBM delivers 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.