Cognos, Panorama Launch New BI Platforms for SAP

Cognos, a software company based in Burlington, Mass., that specializes in business intelligence and performance planning, announced in a statement Nov. 13 at the SAP Reporting and Analytics Conference in Orlando, Fla., the launching of the Cognos 8 Go Mobile for SAP users, a business intelligence product for mobile workers that will allow them to view business information from their mobile device.

Steve Milmore, a Cognos representative, told eWEEK that the Cognos 8 Go Mobile has an array of benefits for the business user that “evolves their mobile devices to become more than just e-mail access tools” for users who “increasingly need immediate visibility into business performance.”

The Cognos 8 Go mobile, designed for mobile workers, executives and managers who need to keep tabs on their businesses of provides users with an array of business intelligence capabilities such as analysis, scorecarding and reporting.

The new Cognos 8 Go mobile allows mobile workers to use a handheld device to read BI reports from the Cognos 8 BI while also enabling users to get dashboards, receive alerts and notifications, explore trends or get a clear picture of customer status across current orders.

Milmore further explained how the Cognos 8 Go Mobile can aid enterprise users.

“Just like BlackBerry users now access their e-mail, a business user will now be able to access their BI reports as he or she can go to their BlackBerry in-box of BI reports, open their daily dashboard, focus on what is needed and find the related information just by using the thumbwheel,” said Milmore.

/zimages/2/28571.gifClick hereto read more about IBMs Lotus applications for BlackBerry.

The new Cognos 8 Go mobile also lets users integrate mySAP data, BW data and non-SAP transactional and warehouse data in a combined view of performance information through report and metrics information.

The new mobile from Cognos also includes the following features:

• Self-service
• Users can access their data online or offline without manual intervention
• Author once: Authors can write a report once, and every SAP user can access that report in the same layout and format regardless of language, locale or consumption approach.
• Single sign-on security

The Cognos 8 Go Mobile is expected to be generally available in the first half of 2007. Cognos said it will announce the full pricing once the product is available.

Also Nov. 13 at the SAP Reporting and Analytics Conference., Panorama Software announced the launching of Panorama NovaView 5, Release 2 for SAP Netweaver, BI.

NovaView 5, which supports Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Service, is now customized to work with SAP NetWeaver BI without performing any data or metadata extractions.

“The key capabilities we will introduce with this product release will ultimately enhance performance and scalability, and extend usability of the SAP NetWeaver BI platform to enable information workers to use BI in a self-device mode with advanced functionality and interactivity,” said Oudi Antebi, VP of marketing and strategy for Panorama Software.

“Since there is no platform, this gives the user much less complexity to deal with and as a result, provides the user with a lot of interactivity with the features that the NovaView 5 provides to the user.”

NovaView 5 incorporates and builds on the initial version of this product while also adding advanced caching, security options, self-service reporting, and now combines with the SAP BEx and is designed to directly run on InfoCubes, BW Queries and ODS.

The NovaView 5 Release 2 will be available by the end of November for the average price of $1,000 per user.

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