IBM's Cognos Express Targets Mid-Sized Firms

September 14, 2009 from InternetNews – “There's a big gulf between what's often barely better than consumer grade software offered to small businesses and the massive packages, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars or even several million, offered to large enterprises.

Into that gap, IBM is pitching Cognos Express, a streamlined version of its business analytics software designed to be easier to use, easier to deploy, and the right price for companies with between 100 and 1,000 employees…”

180 View – I (Michael Burns) recently heard a business intelligence (BI) representative from Microsoft say that the company aims to provide BI to the masses. I recently also heard something similar from a new start-up called Indicee that looks interesting. Most companies struggle with turning all their data into information useful to make decisions (what we call business intelligence). It remains to be seen whether the new crop of tools will solve the problem, but it does seem like the vendors are making progress.