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Cognos (Cognos Incorporated) was an Ottawa, Ontario based company making business intelligence (BI) and performance management software. Founded in 1969, at its peak Cognos employed almost 3,500 people and served more than 23,000 customers in over 135 countries. Originally known as Quasar it adopted the Cognos name in 1982. On January 31, 2008, Cognos was officially acquired by IBM.[1] It continued to operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary (Cognos, an IBM company) until January 1, 2009, when it was absorbed into IBM's Information Management brand within the company's Software Group. The Cognos name continues to be used, being applied to IBM's line of business intelligence (BI) and performance management products. Cognos 8 BI, initially launched in September 2005, combined the features of several previous products, including ReportNet, PowerPlay, Metrics Manager, NoticeCast, and DecisionStream. IBM Cognos Express, launched in September 2009, is an integrated business intelligence (BI) and planning solution purpose-built to meet the needs of midsize companies.
[edit] Acquisitions made by CognosIn September 2007, Cognos announced that it would be acquiring Applix.[2] It had previously acquired 4Thought, Relational Matters, LEX2000, DecisionStream, NoticeCast, Adaytum, Frango, Databeacon and Celequest, an Operational Intelligence company. [edit] Products
[edit] Federal investigationIn August 2007, the Massachusetts state Information Technology Division awarded Cognos a $13 million dollar contract for performance management software. This followed a 2006 $4.5 million dollar state contract awarded to Cognos by the Massachusetts Department of Education. These contracts came under scrutiny from the State Ethics Commission and the office of state Inspector General Gregory Sullivan when several conflicts of interest surrounding Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives Salvatore DiMasi and his accountant Richard Vitale came to light. In the course of these investigations, a payoff from former Cognos sales executive Joseph Lally in the amount of $600,000 was found to have been made to Vitale's company WN Advisors. Vitale and WN Advisors were not registered as state lobbyists and did not disclose the payments, the bulk of which were apparently made on the same day that the state wired funds for the multimillion dollar contracts to Cognos. The disposition of the funds has not been disclosed and the State has rescinded the contracts. IBM, which did not own Cognos when these contracts went into place, has refunded all paid monies and is cooperating with the state investigations. A second close associate of DiMasi's, lawyer Steven Topazio, was placed on a two year $5,000 a month retainer for unspecified purposes. This retainer stopped the same month as the second Cognos contract was awarded.[3] In addition to the payoffs made to close associates of DiMasi, it is known that Vitale helped arrange a below-market mortgage for DiMasi, which violated state Ethics laws. On December 17, 2008, the Boston Globe confirmed that the State investigations were being joined by a Federal Grand Jury probe investigating the allegations and potential violations of Federal law. On June 2, 2009, DiMasi, Vitale, Lally, and Cognos lobbyist Richard McDonough were indicted "on a battery of...corruption charges" as a result of that probe.[4] [edit] AwardsCognos 8 BI has won numerous awards including the eWEEK Excellence Award in Analytics and Reporting, the LOTUS ADVISOR "Editor's Choice" Award, and TechTarget's SearchCRM.com 2005 Product of the Year. In 2007, Cognos was named one of Canada's Top 100 Employers, as published in Maclean's magazine, one of only a handful of software development companies to receive this honour.[5] Cognos has been named to the InformationWeek 500, chosen as one of START-IT Magazine's "Hottest Companies of 2006" and won "Best of Information On Demand Showcase" as part of the IBM Information Management Awards. [edit] References
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