Cognos outlines Applix plans

BI vendor reveals more detail about its integration strategy

Cognos has revealed details of how it plans to integrate analytics software specialist Applix into its portfolio after confirming earlier this month that it is to acquire the vendor for $339m.

The company has said that with the deal expected to close around the end of the year it will not reveal technical product integration details until the acquisition is formally completed.

However, Mychelle Mollot, vice president for market strategy at the business intelligence (BI) specialist, said that the two companies were already working on an integration strategy and that it would "absolutely" look to tie Applix's technology with some of its own products over time.

"Cognos has an open front-end [set of BI tools] so it can be snapped onto our PowerCube OLAP [online analytical processing] cube or onto other third-party cubes," she said. "One area of focus will be to snap it onto [Applix's] TM1 cube so that we will able to offer different cubes –- one a stable data mart in the form of PowerCube and the other the flexible in-memory environment offered by TM1."

However, despite the increased speed of analytics offered by Applix's in-memory architecture, Mollot said that Cognos would not look to re-engineer its own technology to adopt this model across its portfolio. "In-memory is suited to some applications, such as advanced analytics and process optimisation, where the user needs a quick response and can't wait for batch runs to a data warehouse," she observed. "But there are plenty of activites where users still want the data on a regular weekly or monthly basis, and then traditional BI is more appropriate."

Alys Woodward of analysts IDC said that the deal represented a good fit for Cognos and would also give the company improved access to both the midmarket and customers' finance departments, where Applix has traditionally focused.

"At first you’d think Cognos already has an OLAP cube, why is it buying another one?" she commented. "But the focus of the deal seems to be on Applix's financial performance management capabilities and it promises to really build a lot of rich modelling and analytics capabilities into Cognos financial planning software."