January 31, 2008. The IBM purchase of Cognos is complete. Following the SAP purchase of Business Object, and the Oracle purchase of Hyperion and now BEA, finalizing the purchase of Cognos must be a relief to IBM. The deal had been in the works for months, and with the approval of Cognos shareholders has now come to pass.

Cognos has been a major player in Business Intelligence for a decade and a half. The acquisition will help ensure that Cognos 8 and WebSphere will continue to integrate well into the foreseeable future. Now that the major BI vendors have been snapped up, future cross-vendor server compatibility may change.

SAP absorbed Business Objects on January 22, 2008 at a price of $6.8 billion. Business Objects, the maker of Crystal Reports, was a $1 billion a year company with 5000 employees. Cognos is roughly the same size with 4000 employees, going for a reported $4.9 billion.

Tags: business intelligence, Cognos, IBM