Cognos Shareholders Approve Acquisition by IBM

It's final now, "Cognos shareholders have approved the previously announced arrangement whereby International Business Machines Corporation, through an indirect subsidiary, will acquire all of the outstanding common shares of Cognos for US$58.00 in cash for each Cognos common share. The arrangement was approved by approximately 99.8% of the votes". So the arrangement is expected to be closed in the first quarter of 2008. Read the entire Cognos News Release over here. For more info you can refer to my previous post on this acquisition.

IBM to acquire Cognos

When I google on 'IBM to acquire Cognos', the first link I get dates from July 17, 2006. It's an article in IT-Week from James Murray : 'Will IBM acquire Cognos ?' saying "IBM has a gaping hole in its portfolio that is crying out to be filled by a business intelligence specialist". According to him not SAS, Business Objects or Hyperion but "an IBM-Cognos merger could make a lot of sense".
Well, things have indeed been moving since. Oracle took over Hyperion Solutions in March and SAP acquired Business Objects last month. Now IBM and Cognos made the following announcement : 'IBM to Acquire Cognos to Accelerate Information on Demand Business Initiative'. A quote from the announcement :

"Cognos provides the only complete BI and performance management platform, fully integrated on an open-standards-based service oriented architecture (SOA), and has a strong history of supporting heterogeneous application environments, consistent with IBM’s approach. With Cognos, customers can turn data into actionable insight for coordinated, information-driven decision-making to improve overall performance. Cognos will also extend IBM’s reach further into the CFO office with powerful financial planning and consolidation capabilities.
(...)
Together, IBM and Cognos will expand IBM’s ability to provide customers with the right information they need when they need it, to optimize operational performance, and to quickly respond to changing market demands. The combination of IBM’s information management technology and Cognos will also help organizations discover new ways to use trusted information spread across their enterprises to identify new business opportunities and significantly reduce the expense and time required to address industry-specific business challenges".

There's a FAQ on the acquisition on the IBM page. More information on the Cognos products can be found on the Cognos products overview page.

IBM to acquire Softek

IBM seems to be on a roll in acquiring companies. Next on the list is Softek. The Softek site is very outspoken : "IBM + SOFTEK = The Ultimate Choice in Data Mobility". The press release at the IBM Press Room gives us the full detailed information. The main product of Softek is TDMF : "Softek's patented Transparent Data Migration Facility (TDMF) solution enables a simple, unified approach to the non-disruptive movement and management of data across storage vendor platforms and operating system environments, as part of an information technology (IT) infrastructure change. By using Softek's solutions, clients can improve their ability to migrate data while keeping data online and applications available for end users." Typical use : customer acquires new DASD bu cannot afford to have an outage. TDMF does a transparent move of all your data without the outage. I guess this acquisition also fits into an IBM strategy of offering more and more services instead of just products.
Another question that pops up concerning this acquisition : what will be the reaction of EMC who is also a long-term partner of Softek. EMC also uses LDMF which is an equivalent of TDMF. But where TDMF works on a volume level for a mainframe migration, LDMF operates at a dataset level.
Perhaps this is not such a spectacular acquisition, but still a very interesting one indeed.

IBM to acquire Consul

On the Consul site we read that "On December 5, 2006, IBM and Consul entered into a definitive agreement for IBM to acquire Consul". On the IBM site, you can find the entire press release.
Consul is a leading provider of compliance and security audit software that helps clients track, report and investigate non-compliant behavior, such as unauthorized activity by information technology administrators or other users. I know them best for their mainframe products like Consul/RACF but apparantly it's their cross site coverage that makes this company an asset to the IBM products. Or as we find on their site :
"Consul's 20 year history as the leader in audit and compliance software means you can rely on us for the most comprehensive solution available on the market. With the first and only solution for log management, privileged user monitoring and audit (PUMA™), and security audit and compliance reporting across the enterprise, from perimeter to network devices, to applications, databases, operating systems, and the mainframe, the Consul InSight Suite meets your needs to track, report on, and investigate non-compliant behavior.
Consul offers two distinct industry acclaimed product suites:"