IBM is making everything go social these days. Yesterday, IBM released and demoed Cognos 10 to a huge audience at the Information On Demand Conference in Las Vegas.
One of the big announcements of Cognos 10 is that it is now bundled and integrated out of the box with the leading Enterprise 2.0 platform: IBM Connections. That's right, the entire Lotus Connections suite is included for free with Cognos 10! This was received by great fanfare as evidenced in the Twitter stream:
SOakleyIBM: Here's a shot of the new Lotus Connections collaboration integration. Very cool. http://ow.ly/i/4ToZ #baforum #iodgc #cognos10
pjtec: Fully integrated Lotus Connections out of the box with Cognos 10. What about non-Lotus social platforms? #cognos10 #iodgc
sharkpac: IBM #Cognos10 launch. Ships with Lotus Connections. The collaboration capabilities look VERY interesting.
jocoutuer: #iodgc #cognos10 wisdom prevails! Reuse The Lotus connections capabilities for bi groupware mode collaboration and search...
MCsomerville: Ok..this Lotus connections in #Cognos10 is exciting. Also, annotations at a cell level
dmenningervr: Ashe: Bsuiness #analytics has become a team game; will ship Lotus Connections in the #COGNOS10 box #IODGC #BAFORUM one of my faves
rwang0: Cognos10 ships w/ #lotus #connections out of the box #cognos10 #ibm #iodgc #analytics
rwang0: MyPOV: My favorite features are the BI workspaces and collaboration features with Lotus Connections #cognos10 #ibm #iodgc #analytics
Greg_Tydak: #Cognos10 - Social media intehration, seamless upgrade, up to 80% improvement in performance (for #TM1) AND iPad functionality? Sweet.
chrisprocter: Liking the collaborative/social aspects of #cognos10!
cedricdevroey: The team is impressed by the new social features in #cognos10 @Numius
As you'll see, some people had questions about what this means for non-Lotus shops. In my opinion, I don't think this matters for various reasons: 1) Lotus Connections doesn't run on Domino and does not require any Lotus specific technology at all; and 2) Lotus Connections integrates completely into the Microsoft stack. The story has also been picked up by various media channels:
- InfoWorld: IBM Boosts BI Offering with Cognos 10
- Enterprise Management: Top 10 Things You Need To Know about Cognos 10
- ReadWriteWeb: Cognos 10 and How It Represents the IBM Cloud Strategy
- IBM adds predictive analytics and social networking in Cognos 10
- IBM Unveils New Information Management and Analytics Software to Help Organizations Gain Faster Insight for Smarter Business Outcomes
Additionally, you can leverage Cognos' awesome reporting tools to visualize and measure the adoption of Lotus Connections within your enterprise. Here are some sample reports that my co-worker George Brichacek did:
Here's a quick movie-trailer-style video of the Cognos 10 release to pump you up.
Enjoy!