Cognos, an IBM company, has announced that IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence software is now available for Linux on System z. Mainframe customers can now efficiently report and analyze transactional systems directly on the System z, so workers across an organization can use information to quickly identify and respond to critical business trends, the company says. Highly targeted information delivery and analysis capabilities let knowledge workers, ranging from front-line managers to executives, receive strategic business information where, when, and how they need it to make better business decisions.

A result of IBM's rapid assimilation of its acquisition of Cognos, the product unites the proven reporting and analysis capabilities of IBM Cognos 8 BI with the power and reliability of IBM System z. This allows organizations across industries to leverage their mainframe investments to improve decision-making and overall business performance.

The availability of IBM Cognos 8 BI for Linux on System z extends IBM's information-on-demand business strategy, which unifies the company's software, hardware, consulting, and research expertise to help customers gain access to the right information when they need it, along with business insights to address and respond to changing market demands. Further in support of this strategy, IBM has established multiple worldwide System z competency centers to help customers learn about IBM Cognos 8 BI on System z, benchmark the System z architecture, and interact with other IBM products and solutions.

The combination of IBM Cognos 8 BI and System z demonstrates the mainframe's resurgence as a strategic platform for running modern applications, according to IBM. It provides organizations, such as Satyam Computer Services Ltd, with the means to transform their disparate pieces of data into consistent, actionable business information on a modern mainframe that has been designed from the ground up to help dramatically increase data center efficiency. The IBM System z mainframe significantly improves data center performance and reduces power, cooling costs, and floor space requirements with unmatched levels of security and automated management and tracking of IT resources, the company says.

"Our BI Center of Excellence evaluated the tool for very large volumes of data. With IBM Cognos 8 BI for Linux on System z customers can gain a single, current and consolidated view of business information to support operational processes and disperse it to the right teams across the company for more effective-decision making," said Indira Munjuluri, head of BI architecture and CoE group, Satyam Computer Services Ltd. "Aligning such a broad range of BI capabilities with our infrastructure strategy helps us deliver consistent business solutions through a powerful, ultra-efficient data center."

More than 600 new applications and solutions were introduced for the IBM mainframe in 2007-bringing the total to more than 4,000 unique applications available on the System z platform.

"System z customers want more users across their organization making better, faster decisions using their infrastructure platform of choice," said Leah MacMillan, vice-president, BI product marketing, Cognos, an IBM Company. "With IBM Cognos 8 BI for Linux on System z, these customers will be able to take advantage of the broad range of proven BI capabilities for all types of users across the organization to optimize operational processes while reducing infrastructure cost and complexity."

Cognos, an IBM Company, is a recognized leader in delivering BI and performance management solutions across industries. For example, 19 of the top 20 consumer goods companies worldwide, nine of the top 10 insurance companies and over 1,000 financial services organizations, including nine of the top 10 banks in Europe and all of the top 10 banks in the United States, use IBM Cognos solutions.

IBM announced the availability of the System z10 Enterprise Class last February as the most sophisticated server ever developed, reflecting a multi-billion dollar investment, five years of development and a global team of thousands of technical professionals.

IBM System z is an important part of IBM's new enterprise data center model, which helps clients improve IT efficiency and facilitates the rapid deployment of new IT services for future business growth. The model is based on best practices for virtualization, green IT, service management and cloud computing.

About IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Products

IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence (BI) delivers easy-to-use BI with the right context, through familiar interfaces, at the right time. For further information visit: http://www.cognos.com/products/cognos8businessintelligence/index.html. For more information on System z, visit http://www.ibm.com/systems/z.

About Cognos, an IBM Company

Cognos, an IBM company, is the world leader in business intelligence and performance management solutions. It provides world-class enterprise planning and BI software and services to help companies plan, understand and manage financial and operational performance. Cognos was acquired by IBM in January 2008. For more information, visit http://www.ibm.com/software/data/ and http://www.cognos.com/.