Cognos has released the latest version of its business intelligence platform, in what will liklely be the last update before the company's sale to IBM becomes final.
Cognos 8 v3 includes features intended to spur end-user adoption and ease deployment and management.
There is a new "express" authoring mode that financial and business analysts can use to quickly generate financial statement-like reports, and users can also create OLAP (online analytical processing) cubes, scaled-down, faster sets of business data shaped to their particular needs. Also new is a personalised alert feature that lets end-users determine when they want reports, easing the burden on IT departments. The release also includes upgraded dashboarding capabilities.