Acquisitive Cognos Weighs Up Web Buy

Cognos outlined its Web strategy last week as speculation grew that the vendor was on the brink of purchasing a startup operation to fill a hole in its plans.

The support tools vendor was believed to be evaluating whether to purchase startup Infospace, whose technology allows users to undertake queries over the Web using Java applets, or sign a licensing agreement for the software.

Nigel Pendse, analyst at Business Intelligence, said: ?Infospace is a well respected company and it might make sense. But both Oracle?s Essbase and Arbor use the product as a front end, which would make it quite an expensive buy, and Cognos doesn?t usually buy many firms. RIS earlier this year was an exception.?

Roger Gilheany, Cognos business development manager, said: ?I don?t know whether we?re talking to Infospace or not, but we are in acquisitive mode at the moment and if it makes sense, we may do it.?

He added that Cognos saw its Web strategy as fundamental to its future success. ?With the Web you have to segment and understand your users more fully and can access information at a fraction of the price.

?We expect about 60 per cent of our existing users to use browsers rather than a PC over the next couple of years, as a high proportion of them are report viewers who simply like to filter their information,? he said.

After releasing server-based versions of its Impromptu and Powerplay tools earlier this year, Cognos will enable Impromptu users to generate static reports for their Web servers in HTML, which they can then query from a browser.

The Powerplay multi-dimensional engine will also be enhanced to recognise HTML and has moved into beta. Both products are scheduled for release next month.