The Business Intelligence Blog

This is a great article on how Mohamad Ali, the man behind the $5bn IBM Cognos Deal that happened late last year, communicate the deal and also the next steps of integrating these two companies.

To do that, of course, he needs the help of the 4,000-plus Cognos employees. So on day one — a half-day presentation-cum-celebration welcoming the newcomers shortly after the deal closed Feb. 1 — he began communicating the plan as vigorously as possible. Other experienced integrators stage similar events, but few do them on IBM’s scale. For Cognos, based in Ottawa but operating multinationally, there were 20 day ones in quick succession around the world. Besides learning about their mission, the new employees all received ThinkPad laptops and even saw a video documentary about IBM, which George Clooney narrated. Engineered by IBM’s M&A communications team, day-one events have grown steadily more polished over IBM’s 95 acquisitions, including the 12 Ali has now led for information management

This was just a beginning and there was alot to be done. Read the complete story.

After the recent acquisition of Cognos, IBM is starting to add applications to its BI suite by leveraging existing Cognos products and also new BI tools.

From Infoweek -

IBM (NYSE: IBM) last week laid out its plan to integrate the business intelligence products from recently acquired Cognos with its own information management software. To show that it means business, IBM introduced no fewer than 10 BI packages that do just that, for industries such as banking, retail, health care, and life sciences.

The strategy involves melding Cognos’ business analytics and reporting tools with IBM’s content management and database middleware. One offering, for example, adds Cognos’ Store Operations and Planning blueprints to IBM’s Retail Integration framework. Such combinations take “us deeper into business analysis and analytics,” says IBM senior VP Steve Mills.

For banking, IBM introduced the Financial Risk Insight Solution, which couples the IBM Banking Data Warehouse with Cognos 8 Business Intelligence modules. It’s meant to give financial services companies an enterprise-wide view of risk across products, divisions, and geographies.

From Marketwire -

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today introduced new software that allows businesses to better manage the growth of information by integrating data warehousing and archiving capabilities. The new InfoSphere Warehouse with Optim Data Retention will help companies better manage enterprise data throughout its lifecycle and deliver optimal performance and compliance with changing business policies.

InfoSphere Warehouse combines the strength of IBM data warehouse software and recently acquired Princeton Softech’s Optim Data Retention solution to more efficiently manage large amounts of data to enhance users’ competitive advantage.

Here’s more on IBM InfoSphere™ Warehouse with Optim Data Retention.