Cognos

Cognos is IBM's business intelligence (BI) and performance management software suite. The software is designed to enable business users without technical knowledge to extract corporate data, analyze it and assemble reports.  

Cognos is composed of nearly three dozen software products. Because Cognos is built on open standards, the software products can be used with relational and multidimensional data sources from multiple vendors, including Microsoft, NCR Teradata, SAP and Oracle.  

The Cognos 8 BI suite, which was first introduced in 2005, is IBM’s leading performance management software. Cognos 8 BI’s capabilities include reporting, analysis, dashboarding and scorecards, delivered through a web-based service-oriented architecture (SOA). 

In October 2010, IBM released Cognos 10, which integrates Cogos with other IBM products, including SPSS Predictive Analytics and Lotus Connect. Cognos 10 comes with mobile capability, allowing users to access a complete version of Cognos from mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones. 

IBM also offers Cognos Express, which is designed for small to mid-sized companies. The Express edition allows companies to utilize the functions of Cognos 8 BI, while also adding planning, budgeting, and forecasting functions.

IBM’s Cognos products are used by over 23,000 companies around the world, and are consistently ranked in the “leaders” category of Gartner Magic Quadrants for Business Intelligence.