IBM Accelerates Analytics Push with Cognos 10 and More

LAS VEGAS—IBM has introduced new software that combines the company’s information management and analytics capabilities with tools that mark the way today’s workers expect to be able to interact—delivering social collaboration and analytics.

At the IBM Information on Demand (IOD) 2010 event here on Oct. 25, IBM is delivering new analytics software such as Cognos 10 and attempting to address the needs of today's evolving workforce by providing new offerings that combine social networking and collaboration capabilities for the burgeoning mobile workforce, expected to reach more than 1.19 billion by 2013.

In an interview with eWEEK, Rob Ashe, general manager for business analytics at IBM, said IBM has been placing a major focus on analytics over the past few years, as evidenced by the $14 billion the company has spent in making 24 acquisitions related to business analytics.

“Combined, the acquisitions, investments and IBM research adds up to the emphasis we’ve put on analytics,” Ashe told eWEEK. “And analytics is a key part of our 2015 roadmap. Last year, analytics contributed $9 billion to our revenues, and we expect to see that grow to $16 billion in 2015.”

Meanwhile, IBM is bringing information and analytics capabilities to the masses with a new look and feel that more closely mirrors people's every day use of technology, including support for new mobile devices and integrated social networking capabilities for faster, more collaborative decision-making.

The new software takes analytics out of the traditional format of reports and charts to a more interactive design and broader analysis and insight making it easier by providing built-in images and videos to guide business users, Ashe said. Business users can now gain instant insight with analytics in an easy to use format anytime, anywhere on their mobile devices. These new capabilities will have an impact on the way all business users interact with information teams, partners, managers and customers around the globe.

Steve Mills, IBM senior vice president and group executive for software and systems, told eWEEK business analytics is in IBM’s DNA.

“The good news about being old is you have a perspective on the way technology builds on technology,” Mills told eWEEK in an interview. Computers have always been analysis tools. However, what we saw coming was a growing and renewed interest by businesses to become more predictive. This is a boardroom issue – companies want to know how they can see more in advance and can they be more predictive. External forces are driving businesses to think of this. External forces are pressing companies to invest more. We saw that trend line coming. And the question was at what point does the market show evidence of wanting to make a shift and invest more.”

In that regard, IBM took its nascent analytics capabilities, “and we acquired a lot of technology and also did a lot of building from within,” Mill said. Meanwhile, when it comes to competition in the business analytics space, Mills said, “We don’t think anybody puts it all together like we do. So much of what we are doing around things like stream processing are unique. IBM has the industry’s largest and most comprehensive offering.”

Meanwhile, spurred by the growth of mobile transactions, expected to grow by 40 times by 2015,  the increase in the rate and pace of data is accelerating the IT opportunity around information and analytics. When combined with the unprecedented growth of the mobile workforce, this presents an opportunity for businesses to embrace the borderless office and extract intelligence to better interact with customers. A recent IBM study with 1,900 CFOs globally revealed analytics-driven organizations had 33 percent more revenue growth with 32 percent more return on capital invested.  

To address these changing market dynamics, IBM is announcing a set of new business analytics and information management offerings:

• New software that brings together the power of social collaboration and analytics for business users to gain real-time intelligence in a single, user-friendly interface--online or through mobile devices such as ipad, iphones and blackberries.
• New database software that helps businesses combine data - from past, present and future, with 40% reduction in IT cost.  
• New software capabilities that redefine how an organization handles data behind the scenes with faster and more accurate integration of diverse forms of data, and the ability to see the quality of data before its used.

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