INDUSTRY

According to a new META Group Business Performance Management (BPM) METAspectrum(SM) market evaluation, Cognos has performed notably well and continues to gain significant ground in the performance management market. Cognos is the world leader in business intelligence (BI) and corporate performance management. The report, issued today, evaluated 13 vendors on a broad range of factors that determine both market presence and performance. Specifically, the METAspectrum analyzed criteria such as vision and strategy, channels, geographic coverage, business drivers, investments, and market share to score vendors for market presence. Factors examined to determine market performance included technology, services, pricing, personnel, and profitability. Cognos received high marks in both presence and performance, receiving high ratings in several key categories, including vision/strategy, awareness/reputation, investments, partnerships with systems integrators, market share, mind share, technology, execution, and geographic coverage. Cognos has consistently been acknowledged as a significant long-term player in the performance management marketplace by leading industry analysts. The METAspectrum(SM) evaluation particularly noted Cognos' key strengths in performance management core solutions elements such as data collection and validation, consolidation, budgeting and planning, reporting and analysis, scorecards and dashboards, and workflow management. "Organizations need better solutions to ensure visibility into performance and enable better accountability in the new closed-loop business performance management paradigm," said John Van Decker, vice president of META Group. "The market for performance management solutions is especially significant as professionals recognize the importance of measuring department and enterprise- wide performance." Cognos continues to expand its position in the performance management market on the combined strength of its complete and integrated solution for CPM, comprised of: Cognos Enterprise BI Series, the industry's most comprehensive business intelligence solution; Cognos Enterprise Planning Series, the industry-leading solution for planning, budgeting, modeling, and forecasting; and Cognos Metrics Manager, the most robust and flexible enterprise scorecarding solution. "Cognos' momentum in the market continues to grow, and is reflected in the results of this important industry evaluation," said Rob Ashe, Cognos president and chief operating officer. "We remain committed to delivering real business value to our customers, driven by our corporate performance management vision and the unrivalled strength of our industry-leading solutions."