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IBM buys Cognos for $5 billion
By Martin English | November 13, 2007
from Dan Farber
IBM said Monday in a statement that it has acquired Cognos for $5 billion, or $58 a share. In just a month the two leading business intelligence players have been acquired. SAP bought Business Objects last month and it was clear Cognos couldn’t stay solo too much longer. IBM said the Cognos deal is expected to close in the first quarter.
Some may suggest that this was inevitable. After all, there were rumours as far back as July 2006 that this was going to occur. It certainly feels responsive or “me too” to the SAP buyout of Business Objects and the Oracle purchase of Hyperion.
I would like to think there is more to it than just that ; after all, at the reported $5 Billion, it’s probably the largest software acquisition ever made by IBM. On the other hand, IBM has been in the BI space for a long time - it’ll be interesting to see how they use Cognos to extend their current toolset.
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