Cognos Honors Global Partners For Excellence In Performance Management Innovation

 

Technology Partner of the Year: Noetix

By establishing themselves as an important part of the Cognos/Oracle integration strategy, Noetix was selected as Technology Partner of Year. The Noetix Generator provides a connector that automatically generates business intelligence content from enterprise applications...

Global System Integrator Partner of the Year: Accenture

Accenture was selected as Global SI Partner of the Year due to its commitment to Cognos, its extensive investment in training and for developing leading industry-focused solutions. Accenture was also the top revenue-producing GSI partner for Cognos this past year.

Global Alliance Partner of the Year: Deloitte

Deloitte was selected as Global Alliance Partner of the Year for its key strategic alliance with Cognos, which has resulted in both companies’ strong success in the performance management market. Through their understanding and commitment to IBM Cognos products, Deloitte is helping Cognos clients deliver innovative, high-value solutions that solve industry-specific business challenges.

The Powered by IBM Cognos Software Partner Solution Award is given to partners for developing outstanding solutions based on Cognos products.  This year the top Powered by Cognos Award for all Alliances was awarded to BearingPoint for their work in developing and marketing the POM Budget solution for the United States Department of Defense.

Cognos Honors Global Partners For Excellence In Performance Management Innovation

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Interview: IBM Cognos chief Rob Ashe | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com

Interesting Rob Ashe interview @ ZDNet.com:

Ashe said part of the reason the industry grew up so quickly was that customers were looking to BI applications to squeeze returns out of ERP systems. Today, it’s clear that ERP systems are about automating transactions, but BI is the real differentiator because it optimizes the business. That realization is one reason why Oracle and SAP bought BI companies.

[...]

IBM’s approach to BI is to take Cognos and integrate it into the so-called information life cycle. In other words, IBM will take Cognos and layer its performance management software on top of its information server, data quality tools, storage and data warehousing applications. “They (SAP and Oracle) are selling transaction environment. We’re selling data and information management independent of transaction.”

[...]

“Most enterprises have performance management already, but are looking for more centralized capability to get a single strategic view of data.”

Interview: IBM Cognos chief Rob Ashe | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com

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Robot as teacher

Deltek User Conference coverage from Nick Wakeman at Washington Technology:

Deltek took over the Opryland complex with 4,000 attendees. It was an impressive sight to see that many people focused on one set of products. I went to the opening session on Tuesday, thinking this was going to be the big sales pitch.

Sure there was some rah-rah stuff, but it was not obnoxious. Kevin Parker, the CEO, gave a good overview of the company and where it is headed. Look for more on that in an upcoming issue of WT.

Robot as teacher

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NASA's publicly accessible workforce information Cognos PowerPlay cubes - InformationWeek

NASA has public Cognos PowerPlay cubes accessible online containing all its workforce data available here.

The Workforce Strategy Division in the Office of Human Capital Management provides updated WICN Cubes every two weeks. The cubes contain multiple dimensions - any of which can be dragged over to replace the row or column currently shown. Clicking on a row or column label will drill down to a lower level of detail.

Who Works Where?
Locations, occupations, grades, salaries, demographics of NASA employees. This information comes from the personnel/ payroll system.

Who Works on What?
Deployment of the workforce across all the Agency’s missions, themes, programs and projects. This information comes from the Agency’s labor distribution system

and more...

Found in a related article about NASA's retiring workforce woes:

The average age of NASA employees is 46.2 years and rising, and the space agency forecasts that more than 4,000 of its full-time workers will retire over the next six years [...]

It's easy enough to see the demographic data that's driving NASA in this direction. The agency makes its workforce data publicly available via Cognos PowerPlay business-intelligence software. You can view NASA's workforce data cubes on the NASA site here.

Social Networking As Rocket Science - Startup City Blog - InformationWeek

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Social Networking for government contractors: Deltek Partners with mySBX

 

Deltek... announced that it will be sponsoring two on-line communities within the mySBX destination portal to help Government contractors connect, collaborate and share information and opportunities to enable their businesses to grow.

[...] mySBX is a destination portal that will enable users to grow their businesses, find new opportunities and access content specifically built for their industry. Enabled by a first-of-its-kind collaborative platform, government contractors are able to partner, share information, exchange billable opportunities and access valuable insight into best-of-breed vendors and services.

[...] Deltek is sponsoring two cornerstone communities: Earned Value Management (EVM) and Cost Accounting Systems. Some of the many features of these communities include an "Artifacts" section for hosting documents and training materials, a "Directories" section of constantly updated and ranked source for community key players, as well as sections for service and technology providers, government agencies, useful websites and company professional associations. There are tools for managing upcoming events, conferences, training and user meetings. In addition, webinars are offered to help users stay on top of topic issues as well as journals, articles, research capabilities, on-line books and blogs. Users can even utilize an "Ask the Expert" section to access a group of on-line industry professionals to help with designating the top contributions in each area to maximize their mySBX community experience.

PR-USA.net - Deltek Partners with mySBX to Enable Government Contractors to Connect and Collaborate in New and In

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Cognos will protect its partners, says executive | COMPUTERWORLD

More comments on the Cognos partner eco-system business model:

Cognos partners needn't worry about being swamped by the over 90,000 members of IBM's PartnerWorld program. Cognos partners will be protected, and IBM partners wanting to sell Cognos will need to apply to join the Cognos program like any other partner.

Cognos will protect its partners, says executive | COMPUTERWORLD KENYA

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IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence: The Official Guide

In bookstores now! Available on Amazon.

John Daniel Associates (JDA), a Platinum Reseller and accredited Cognos partner, has announced the release of the first Cognos 8 Business Intelligence (BI) book, IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence: The Official Guide. The book is published by McGraw-Hill and is the only book IBM Cognos recognizes as official representation of its Cognos 8 BI solution. The book is authored by Dan Volitich, president and owner of John Daniel Associates. It debuts today at Cognos Forum 2008 in Las Vegas

John Daniel Associates, Inc. Announces Authoring and Release of: IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence: The Official Guide

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IBM Plans To Double Cognos Sales In Under Three Years - IT Channel - IT Channel News by CRN and VARBusiness

As IBM moves to integrate Cognos, some partners had been concerned about their future role:

IBM Plans To Double Cognos Sales In Under Three Years - IT Channel - IT Channel News by CRN and VARBusiness: "To grow the Cognos market IBM wants to increase the amount of Cognos-related consulting services available in the marketplace. 'This is actually a tremendous opportunity for our partners,' Zeledon said, citing performance management and data integration as consulting service examples.

IBM intends to use a controlled distribution model to "preserve the Cognos ecosystem," Zeledon said. IBM will not automatically make Cognos products available to the 90,000 members of IBM's PartnerWorld channel partner program. Such a move could create "a dilution of the [Cognos] ecosystem" because many won't know the technology or add sufficient value, the Cognos executive said. PartnerWorld members that want to resell or work with Cognos products will have to apply to Cognos to do so."

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Forrester Information Management Blog

Forrester Research has an interesting blog post that puts BI in the context of a management consulting initiative rather than a stand-alone IT project, focusing on Cognos' new CXO access through IBM's strategy consulting relationships.

...Business intelligence (BI) is still very much an art, less so a science (see our latest "It’s Time To Reinvent Your BI Strategy" and "Strong Partners Are Key To Successful BI Initiatives" research reports), is causing vendors with significant BI product portfolio to lead the trend. Most notable relevant transactions were the acquisition of PwC Consulting by IBM and Knightsbridge by HP. These acquisitions allowed IBM and HP to take their rightful place alongside with Accenture, CGEY, Deloitte, Bearing Point and others as generic, vendor neutral management consultants with strong BI capabilities.

The trend is far from over. Now that SAP, Oracle and Microsoft moved into big time, stack independent, heterogeneous BI products, it most probably won't be long before they acquire a large management consulting firm with strong BI capabilities, or one of hundreds boutique BI consultancies that are out there and are doing extremely well. SAP, Oracle, Microsoft desperately need these management consulting capabilities to continue to compete effectively with IBM. If they don't, IBM will always have that one advantage and strong differentiation.

Forrester Information Management Blog

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