Victorian ISV first to integrate IBM Cognos 10

Victorian ISV Pronto Software was the first enterprise resource planning (ERP) developer globally to integrate with IBM's newly launched Cognos 10 business intelligence suite, it was announced today.

IBM launched Cognos 10 today at the IBM Information On Demand 2010 Forum in Las Vegas where Pronto managing director David Jackman was "front and centre," Pronto's head of R&D Chad Gates told CRN.

"The company's senior technical staff were there too," Gates said.

Cognos 10 signalled IBM's plan to broaden its BI customer base with new social networking, collaboration and mobile computing capabilities. 

Pronto's integrated software PRONTO-Xi was developed for the mid-market to give users access to data, reporting and business insight, the company said. 

Gates said the timing of Cognos 10 fitted with Pronto's software refresh and, coupled with its "strong IBM heritage" and "unique level of integration", led Pronto to be first.

"We discovered that we were the only ones as advanced in the integration and we really tried and pushed hard with IBM so they knew what we were doing."

Pronto started the formal integration of the software in February with the beta version of Cognos 10. Its core is in the mid-market.

Gates said the "mid-market is as complex as the enterprise with the same level of complexity".

"That's where system software such as Pronto becomes valuable," he said. "We provide a product that has tier 1 functionality with a tier 2 value proposition", Gates said.

"It's an area we've always been strong in. By adding Cognos BI into the mix we increase that value.

"In terms of our market space we think we're miles ahead. There are many ISVs and resellers of Cognos. I'm sure many will catch up very quickly but there are various levels."

Key integration points, according to Gates:

• The transaction engine will now have Cognos 10 as a window to the data.
• Demystifying the data that underlies a customer's system. They can think more about what they want than what the system has.

A PRONTO-Xi beta version will be available next month before its March launch.