Cognos Brings Their Performance DNA to Gotham

Greetings from the Cognos kick-off event for Cognos 8v3. Cognos bills this as The DNA for Performance Evolution. Doors opened at 8am and to their performance credit, the group running the event managed to get it kicked off on time. Cognos bills this as performance management in the real world, with a target of reaching 8,000 customers in 35 cities as well as an online event.

Mark Jeffries kicked off the event and quickly gave way to Cognos CEO Rob Ashe. Ashe welcomed everyone and noted that Cognos 8v3 is a “foundational release – very sturdy and the product of more testing than any prior release from the company.” Ashe asserted that performance management is the #1 priority for all organizations.

Ashe followed with the standard BI assertion - the issue starts from the sheer quantity of data. Another issue is the increasing competitive environment. Arguably we are on the edge of a recession and Ashe suggested that is part of the priority and urgency. Performance of the business is critical. Finally, part of the issue is management. Too much money on automation. Too much back office, but not enough focus on optimization and driving performance.

Ashe commented that Cognos has been on a 20 year journey of innovation. However, the product circle that appeared behind him was not as high quality as other graphics in the presentation. It was the standard circle with performance in the center, first ring measure and monitoring, next planning, finally, reporting and analysis. Ironically, the product diagram was less good than the one I remember when I presented right after Ashe at Computerworld’s BI show in 2005.

He presented an overview of the BI industry using Cognos products for reference and the reality over the last couple years that performance management is where it is going. Performance management is growing up and the result is more demand and CPM going very broad and very deep.

The focus of the Cognos message and belief:

1. BI + Scorecards + planning must all be integrated on a single platform.

2. Delivery of a framework – revenue management, long term asset management, expense management, financial management. Looking for what is unique in the business and using it to drive forward
3. Architecture – services oriented backbone on a single, SOA, extendable platform.

Cognos 8v3 key message points: More targeted info to more users, easier to deploy and manage and new solutions and best practices to accelerate success

Interesting that Ashe commented that this has been the longest product test. 9 months. IBM performance lab tested 3 times before release. Ashe also asserted that “Cognos stands alone in ability to make it easy to administer and manage applications in real deployment and drive adoption.” However, it is not clear from the demo that they are providing anything that is revolutionary or truly new here.

There was a little time spent on acquisition talk. Cognos recently closed the deal from Applix and Ashe mentioned that the new company and technology is a strong fit and well received. TM1 was positioned as an “all in one solution for the mid-market”. It was interesting to hear it positioned this way as that was not consistent with the original press releases on the topic.

On the topic of IBM, Ashe noted that he and the whole company are excited. The deal was approved by the Cognos shareholders yesterday with approval vote of 99%. Ashe asserted synergies and shared vision around business optimization and performance. He also mentioned that Cognos employees are excited about the merger. Clearly it is not a merger and it is not clear that everyone is excited.

The event venue is great, being hosted in a rotunda of a former bank. Kudos to the Cognos team for putting the stage together and adding Cognos signage without taking away from the elegance of the venue. Mark Jefferies is the host for the event and while he is high energy, he clearly is not a Cognos employee because he was reading his open remarks from his clip board and needed to refer to the sheet to remember the names of the presenters. Overall a very solid presentation and a good set up for the rest of the presenters.