Following on the heels of two major BI acquisitions this year by Oracle and SAP, IBM has announced the acquisition of Cognos for $5 billion in cash. This is a modest premium of around 9% for Cognos, but considering all that's going on in the industry, a good outcome. It's not clear that given the other recent deals that Cognos would be viable in the long term as an independent company. It also makes sense for IB Following on the heels of two major BI acquisitions this year by Oracle and SAP, IBM has announced the acquisition of Cognos for $5 billion in cash. This is a modest premium of around 9% for Cognos, but considering all that’s going on in the industry, a good outcome. It’s not clear that given the other recent deals that Cognos would be viable in the long term as an independent company. It also makes sense for IBM to provide the same type of “one stop shopping” as its rivals.While Oracle is most well-known for its acquisition strategy with such high profile deals as Siebel and PeopleSoft, IBM has acquired 23 companies since February 2006 as part of its “information on demand” strategy. Other acquisitions have included FileNet (Content Management), MicroMuse (Network Management), DataMirror (Real-Time Data Integration), Watchfire (Security), Softek Storage (Storage Management), Webify (SOA), Telelogic (Lifecycle Management), WebDialogs (Web conferencing), Novus CG (Storage Analytics) to name a few. Open Source