Cognos Blasts the Performance Management Market

We've spoken in the past, as has every industry analyst if you ask them or read their work, about the fact that it appeared that the Cognos performance management offering was starting to appear a bit worn around the edges, what with the newer, flashier acquisitions and products being released out into the market.

Well earlier this week, on December 11th, the fine folks in Ottawa started firing back, issuing a torrent of press releases touting their new performance management vision, new financial performance management solution plans, strategic financial planning solutions, as well as a pharmaceutical performance solution as well, which addresses a key market that other vendors have not explicitly called out.

Now the skeptics and competitive vendors among us will point out, and perhaps rightly so, that these press releases are nothing more than a rebranding of the Applix products now that the acquisition has been completed. In in part, they would be correct. But it's hard to argue with the fact that when you read the reviews of the Applix acquisition from analyst firms who caution customers and prospects to get a better idea of the Cognos plans before committing to the Cognos solution, this is a necessary step to help regain lost market moment momentum that inevitably occurs during these "we bought them but don't quite own them yet" periods.

But if you dig down a bit further into the first press release, you see that they're really beefing up both the innovation center concept; and with the introduction of the pharma performance solutions, they still have a really comprehensive offering around the discipline of performance management--it's good to see them back in the game and fully engaged.