The Ottawa-based company previewed its Go! Mobile rich client that integrates BI data into mobile and handheld devices.
The new mobile client represents Cognos’ next milestone in making BI real for more people and enabling higher user adoption of business intelligence for enhanced decision making and improved organizational performance.
This is not the first time that BI vendors have dabbled in wireless technologies. Six years ago there was a wave of similar announcements that promised increased mobility for BI users, this time leveraging WAP-enabled phones. For example Informatica Corp, which back then was in the business analytics game, even bought Zimba Inc, a provider of mobile applications technology. But the hype dissipated almost as fast as it came as BI vendors were unable to articulate enough compelling business use-case scenarios outside of sales reps on the road.
The state of the art around WAP-enabled mobile devices and bandwidth back then was also a major technical hindrance for data processing, especially as vendors tried to recreate their BI desktops on mobile phone interfaces.
However Cognos says that its Go! Mobile offering is different since it goes beyond simply trying to wrapper up desktop BI applications in a wireless mode of access.
The state of art around wireless BI applications today is delivering email alerts and embedding static PDF-style reports with limited functionality, said Don Campbell, vice president of platform strategy and technology at Ottawa-based Cognos.
Also using a web browser based mobile device to interact with BI data has been a pain due to a lot of back and forth communication to the server.
Campbell explained that users typically experience painfully slow download and response times with HTM, particularly when scrolling and expanding cells in a spreadsheet or when viewing PDF reports.
Additionally he said that many BI applications had to be re-designed or re-implemented, with content re-formatted and re-rendered specifically to work on a mobile device.
Campbell said that a perfect storm of device usability enhancements and expanded memory footprints now gives mobile users an opportunity to do more with BI data.
We’ve raised the bar with Go! Mobile with a purpose built rich client that lives on a Blackberry device that connects back to the server.
There is also the added benefit for IT of an author once and deploy anywhere development model, whereby the Go! Mobile client automatically takes care of all the device-specific data formatting, thereby negating the need for a separate mobile authoring environment.
The great thing is that it doesn’t require any re-authoring of Cognos 8 reports and metric information to reproduce it on any device be it Web, search, desktop or mobile, Campbell said.
The element of not having to re-author a Cognos 8 report is very important as it gives users instant access to thousand reports, including management reports, with the same formatting and styles they get in Web client interface.
Go! Mobile also taps into Cognos 8’s native security model for encryption and single sign-on access. It also benefits from a device-aware navigation and presentation scheme allowing users with richer and more intuitive interaction with BI reports.
Cognos has paid particular attention to the issue of bandwidth, and Go! Mobile uses heavy compression to transmit information quickly.
There is also an offline mode whereby Go! Mobile users can interact with BI data held locally on the device even when disconnected with the server.
The initial version of Go! Mobile will run exclusively on Research In Motion Inc’s Blackberry device. Both companies have formed a technology alliance to deliver the technology on Blackberry devices in early 2007. Cognos said it began consulting RIM in 2006 to understand its customer habits.
No software needs to be installed, its all pushed out to the Blackberry, Campbell said.
He added that Cognos plans to roll out support for other wireless technologies like Windows Mobile and Symbian devices in the near future.
Like other BI vendors Cognos is keen to broaden access to BI information to users that not today are not necessarily BI consumers today.
Cognos’ new line of Go! branded products are intended to do this, by easing user access to BI information like reports, analysis, dashboards and metrics through friendly interfaces.
Earlier this year the company launched its Go! Search Service, that What, and Go! Office Connection for interacting with Cognos BI content via Microsoft’s Office desktop applications like Excel, Word and PowerPoint.
Go! Mobile a way for us to extend our user reach, much like Go! Search and Go! Office, but this time to user that are on the go, Campbell said.
Go! Mobile can also connect to the Go! Search services as well.
Cognos Go! Mobile is officially being previewed next week, after which it will launch into a beta phase for a couple of months before a general release that is slated for early 2007.
Cognos has not yet figured out pricing. ‘We’ve kicked around a number of models, as free or licensed extension for Cognos 8 platform. But we don’t have anything as yet, Campbell admitted.
It is not thought that Go! Mobile will be a big revenue earner for Cognos. But it should help the company break the complexity barriers that have so far restricted BI information access to just 15-20% of corporate information workers in the enterprise.
