IBM, Cognos Outline IOD Strategy, Road Map

IBM plans to prove that math is fundamental.

Now that it has closed the books on its $5 billion acquisition of business intelligence software maker Cognos, IBM has said it will differentiate itself in the fast-consolidating BI market thanks to its decades-long research and development of sophisticated analytics derived from some serious mathematical expertise.

"IBM is a treasure trove of technology," Steve Mills, IBM senior vice president and group executive of the IBM Software Group, said during a press conference held in New York on Feb. 6.

Mills argued that while IBM has not been known as a BI vendor in the past, "We are the only company that deals with deep analytics and sophisticated mathematics to conquer things like scheduling and bio research."

He intimated that Cognos would serve as the "tip of the iceberg" for IBM's deeper R&D capabilities.

Click here to read more about how IBM is incorporating Cognos BI into its Information On Demand strategy. 

To show that it's hitting the ground running with its latest acquisition, IBM also announced 10 new and enhanced software packages for the banking, retail, health care, government, life sciences and manufacturing vertical industries.

In addition, six preintegrated packages bring together IBM and Cognos' software and hardware and a new Information On Demand Infrastructure Services offering to help companies plan, design and deploy an enterprisewide data, storage and content management system, company officials said.

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