Cognos aligns with Composite

Cognos and Composite Software on Monday joined forces to combine BI reporting with EII (enterprise information integration) software.

The partnership is the latest in an increasingly important blending of the two software types, which includes moves by Actuate and Business Objects.

“BI vendors are realizing that EII is useful for accessing real-time data,” said Colin White, an analyst at BI Research.

Cognos embedded Composite’s software into the Cognos ReportNet BI tool, the companies said.

Composite on Monday also issued Version 3.0 of its flagship software.

New capabilities in Composite 3.0 include enhanced query optimization in the form of Composite Intelligence Query, aka Composite IQ; read/write capabilities that enable view updates within the product; and a broadened capability to bring in relational or XML data sources that now include Java calls and custom Java functions, among others. Version 3.0 is also easier to deploy and administer, said Composite CEO Jim Green.

“Cognos discovered something we were realizing, too. Next-generation reporting is the killer app for EII,” Green said.

Philip Russom, an analyst at Forrester Research, agreed that BI and EII are a natural fit.

“EII provides greater access options, greater technology for distributed queries, and helps to fill some of the voids in reporting tools,” Russom said. “BI and EII have a definite synergy.”

Cognos executives certainly think so, enough at least to take a $4.5 million equity stake in Composite this week.

Cognos is not the only BI vendor to propose marriage with an EII bride. Attunity and Business Objects earlier this month outlined a partnership that will see the companies working together. They plan to integrate support for Attunity into Business Objects 6.5 in order to update data warehouses in so-called real time by transferring just the changes to data sources. Actuate last year acquired Nimble Technology for its EII wares.

“People endeavor to expand their BI by broadening the view of data across the enterprise, and that means accessing more and more systems,” said Ted Friedman, principal analyst at Gartner. “I’d be surprised if EII is a stand-alone market over time. The federation becomes something bigger as part of BI tools.”