Cognos Profit Climbs with Enterprise Deals

Cognos Inc. saw revenues and profits surge in its fiscal third quarter, driven by large enterprise deals.

The company closed a company-record 15 deals worth $1 million or more in the quarter, ended Nov. 30. That helped increase its revenues to $210.4 million, up from $172.2 million in the same period a year ago. License revenue climbed from $72.6 million to $91.6 million over the same period.

The revenue increase helped boost net income from $22.2 million to $34.5 million, or 37 cents per share, year-over-year.

Cognos chief financial officer Tom Manley said ReportNet, the enterprise reporting product Cognos released only a year ago, was the companys leading revenue driver and was a part of all 15 million-dollar-plus deals.

“Were very happy with the momentum were seeing from ReportNet and Enterprise Planning,” said Manley, in Ottawa, Ontario. “From the revenue point of view, we had excellent performance across all of our different metrics.”

Manley said the growth of business intelligence as a “strategic enterprise” investment, standardization on one vendors platform and the increasing importance of corporate performance management, especially for financial management applications, were all key drivers of Cognos revenues in the quarter.

Net income increased despite the Canadian dollars 10 percent rise in value on foreign exchange markets in the quarter.

“The rise of the Canadian dollar presents us with an organizational challenge in cost structures, but we were able to manage it,” Manley said.

Cognos is expecting revenues in the $235 million to 240 million range in its fiscal fourth quarter ending Feb. 28, with earnings of 44 cents to 47 cents per share, Manley said.

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