IBM to acquire Cognos
ConvergenceAsia staff
14/11/2007

IBM has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Cognos, a publicly-held company based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, in an all-cash transaction at a price of approximately US$5 billion or US$58 per share, with a net transaction value of $4.9 billion.

The acquisition, subject to Cognos shareholder approval, regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions, is expected to close in the first quarter of 2008.

Said Steve Mills, senior vice president and group executive, IBM Software Group, "IBM has been providing Business Intelligence solutions for decades. Our broad set of capabilities – from data warehousing to information integration and analytics – together with Cognos, position us well for the changing Business Intelligence and Performance Management industry.”
 
The acquisition of Cognos accelerates IBM’s global Information on Demand initiative to unlock the business value of information for our customers, he said. IBM will provide broader reach for Cognos solutions across multiple industries and geographies with a more complete set of offerings, including consulting services, hardware, and other middleware software.

Cognos provides the only complete BI and performance management platform, fully integrated on an open-standards-based service oriented architecture (SOA), and has a strong history of supporting heterogeneous application environments, consistent with IBM’s approach.

“This combination allows Cognos customers to leverage a broader set of solutions from IBM to advance their information management driven initiatives,” said Rob Ashe, president and chief executive officer, Cognos.

With Cognos, customers can turn data into actionable insight for coordinated, information-driven decision-making to improve overall performance. Cognos will also extend IBM’s reach further into the CFO office with powerful financial planning and consolidation capabilities.

Following completion of the acquisition, IBM intends to integrate Cognos as a group within IBM's Information Management Software division, focused on Business Intelligence and Performance Management.

Cognos has approximately 4,000 employees worldwide and serves more than 25,000 customers.

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