IBM entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Cognos in a cash transaction at a price of approximately $5 billion or $58 per share, with a net transaction value of $4.9 billion.
The acquisition is subject to Cognos shareholder approval, regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. It is expected to close in the first quarter of 2008.
The acquisition of Cognos supports IBM's Information on demand strategy. Integrating Cognos will enable new business insights to be delivered to a broader set of people across an organization, beyond the traditional users of business intelligence (BI). 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 open-standards-based service oriented architecture (SOA), and has a strong history of supporting heterogeneous application environments, consistent with IBM’s approach. 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 BI and performance management. IBM also will appoint current Cognos President and CEO, Rob Ashe, to lead the group.
Be the first to comment on this post using the section below.