Monkey see, monkey acquire
It didn't take long.
The leading companies in area called business-intelligence software used to be agonistic. Their software could be tied into any of the suites for enterprise management offered by the big players - SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM. (Business intelligence software is used to help companies do strategic planning and assess eh impact of nay move.)
But recently the enterprise software leaders have managed to buy out leading business-intelligence software makes. In March of this year, Oracle spent $3.3 billion to acquire Hyperion Solutions. Then SAP countered in October by buying Business Objects SA for $7 billion. So it was no surprise when IBM announced that it would buy Canada-based Cognos for $5 billion. Cognos is, or was, the biggest rival to Hyperion and Business Objects.
While a Wall Street Journal article ("BM to Buy Cognos For About $5 Billion', 11/12/07) quotes an IBM software executive as saying "We never do acquisitions on defensive moves or based on what others are doing", it's hard to imagine any other explanation. As the WSJ article explains, software is IBM's growth engine, while at the same time its hardware sales are lagging.
It's hardly the first big purchase software for IBM. As a Bloomberg News story ("IBM to Buy Cognos for $4.9 Billion to Gain Software", 11/12/07) notes "With Cognos, IBM has spent about $15 billion since 2001 to build up the software unit, whose profit margins are almost twice as high as those for the rest of the business." For Cognos, it has become clear that there is little opportunity to go it alone with two big potential customers spoken for. Interestingly enough, the Bloomberg story notes that Microsoft may yet make a higher bid for the company, since it would be the odd man out of the Big Four.
4:41:15 PM 
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