INDUSTRY

Cognos, the world leader in business intelligence and corporate performance management (CPM), today announced the release of Cognos Support Accelerator, an innovative secure web-based service that automates the timely and accurate collection of customer software and hardware information during support case submission. Studies show that during the resolution of a software support case a tremendous amount of time and customer effort are required in the "discovery" phase, where a technical support analyst attempts to collect appropriate, accurate and sufficient information from the customer about their supported application. Cognos Support Accelerator automates the process of gathering this vital diagnostic information to be packaged, reviewed by the customer, and then sent to Cognos Customer Support. "Cognos is committed to continually increasing the value customers receive from their support investment," said Ed Shepherdson, vice-president of Global Customer Support at Cognos. "Cognos Support Accelerator will allow our customers to maximize their resources, increase service personalization, speed their case resolution and generally enhance their service experience." "Cognos Support Accelerator is certainly a major step forward, if not a breakthrough, in the delivery of customer support," said Michael O'Brien, Director of Corporate Systems at Sears Canada, Inc. and an early Cognos Support Accelerator adopter. Customers looking to get started with Cognos Support Accelerator can find complete service details on the Cognos Customer Support website at http://support.cognos.com/en/support/csa/index.html.