IBM Cognos Business intelligence delivers complete capabilities including reports, scorecards and analysis in one product allows users to author, share and use reports that draw on data across all enterprise sources for better business decisions.
Read more about Cognos here: http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/
Alternative software for Cognos Business Intelligence software:
1> Pentaho – Free Business Intelligence Software.
@Ken – Thanks for your input.
Cognos by IBM is one of the most popular and widely used reporting solutions in the world. Yet why are so many people frustrated with it?
To answer this question you must first understand that there are two types of Business Intelligence reporting users: casual users and power users. Casual users, which typically make up 80% or more of the people in an organization, include executives, managers, staff, and business analysts. Power users, making up less than 20%, include IT developers, super users, and analytical modelers
Power users have no problem working with Cognos because they understand database design, structures, relationships, joins, and SQL commands. To a casual user, on the other hand, this is all Greek to them. This is where the first point of frustration comes in: casual users don’t have the time to learn Cognos nor do they want to become programmers.
So now the casual user must go to the power users to get the reports they want. This creates a second point of frustration: the “IT Bottleneck”.
The IT department is already overloaded with installing upgrades and patches, dealing with hardware issues, network support, software development, bug fixes, and more. Writing end-user ad-hoc reports is the lowest priority. The casual users can’t get what they want when they want it.
Stonefield Query: the BI reporting alternative
Stonefield Query is designed specifically for the casual user. It gives them the ability to create their own ad-hoc queries and reports, production reports, and parameterized reports from scratch without needing to know anything about programming.
Stonefield Query lets you produce row and column reports, cross-tab reports, charts/graphs, labels, etc. It works with virtually any database including: Oracle, SQL, DB2, MySql, Sybase, Pervasive, and more. It also comes with built-in scheduling.
Bottom line: give a casual user a BI tool designed for them.