Cognos Updates Scorecarding

The Ottawa-based company says Metrics Manager Version 2 will make it easier for non-analysts to build custom reports for the information they need.

In this version, the company has made it easier for a businessperson to build reports by picking custom columns and using other intuitive tools, said Michael Smith, product marketing manager for Cognos' Corporate Performance Management (CPM).

"There has been a lot of growth [in this area] because of all the new corporate governance. ... There's been a shift to hundreds and thousands of users [within companies] where there had been tens of users," Smith said.

Cognos pitches the tool, which also integrates with its existing analytics applications, as a neutral arbiter of corporate data. "We can pull from ERP, business intelligence, spreadsheets ... into a staging area," Smith said. It also supports popular application servers including IBM WebSphere, BEA WebLogic and SunOne offerings.

Analytics and business intelligence vendors of all kinds are pushing their newest wares as ways to meet new regulatory requirements imposed by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, industry observers said. That legislation required more timely and transparent reporting of business activity.

Late last year, Cognos bought Adaytum for $160 million in stock and cash to boost its enterprise performance planning capabilities (see story).

Just last week, Business Objects said it would buy Crystal Decisions in a stock-and-cash deal worth $820 million. Crystal is known for its reporting tools.

Other business intelligence powers working in related areas include analytics giant SAS Institute, Hyperion and soon Business Objects. Meanwhile, other applications and platform vendors are adding more analytics and reporting capabilities to their offerings. Microsoft and Oracle, for example, are bolstering the analytics capabilities of their databases.

Metrics Manager Version 2, due to ship in August, is priced at $650 per user. Version 1 shipped in December 2002.