INDUSTRY

At Lotusphere 2006, Cognos today announced the general availability of the Cognos 8 Business Intelligence Data Modeler for IBM Lotus Domino. Companies will now be able to access critical business information located in isolated silos of IBM Lotus Notes applications and databases. This further extends the capabilities of Cognos 8 BI to access heterogeneous data sources and provide the most comprehensive view of corporate information for BI reporting, analysis, scorecarding, dashboards, and event management. Through its simple wizard-style interface, the Cognos 8 BI Data Modeler integrates Lotus Notes databases and applications with Cognos 8 BI, the only BI product to deliver the complete range of BI capabilities on a single, proven architecture. In addition, customers can present and manage Cognos reports within the IBM Websphere Portal and the IBM Workplace Managed Client to further facilitate collaboration, problem-solving, and performance management initiatives. "Global organizations have leveraged the unique capabilities in Lotus Notes to build thousands of applications, and most of those applications were created before business intelligence became a critical business requirement," said Leah MacMillan, vice president of product marketing, Cognos. "As a result, most enterprises struggle to include Lotus Notes data within their BI infrastructure. The Cognos 8 BI Data Modeler allows Notes users, for the first time, to leverage all of the enterprise's knowledge to gain a complete picture of business performance." "As with collaboration and portal technologies, choosing a business intelligence standard requires that technology meets stringent enterprise- class requirements," said Ken Bisconti, vice president, Workplace Portal and collaboration products, IBM. "One of these requirements is accessing a vast number of heterogeneous data sources for modeling and querying, including Lotus Notes data. With the Cognos 8 BI Data Modeler, Cognos is helping customers extend the value of their investments in Cognos and Lotus Domino." The Cognos 8 BI Data Modeler allows BI users to easily select Lotus Notes data sources, tables, and columns, and label them with names that are meaningful to the business, without making any changes to existing Lotus Notes applications. The Cognos 8 BI Data Modeler optimizes the data for fast access and creates a metadata model for Cognos 8 BI. This data is then as accessible as any other enterprise data source and can be joined to other enterprise data sources without coding. The Workplace Managed Client integration allows users to collaborate with a full understanding of business performance. The Cognos 8 BI Data Modeler for IBM Lotus Domino was co-developed with Cognos technology partner Sun and Son, an industry leader in the development and integration of solutions for Workplace Collaboration and Knowledge and Expertise Management. A product demonstration can be downloaded at the Cognos Web site at its Web site.