Cognos, Informatica Team Up

SAN FRANCISCO -- A revved-up business software partnership should bolster Informatica's(INFA) top line in coming quarters. The other partner, Cognos(COGN), will likely benefit, too, but over the longer term.

Ottawa-based Cognos announced Monday that it will resell Informatica's data quality capability to its customers to eliminate a stumbling block to the successful use of its own software.

Informatica announced a similar deal with SAP(SAP) in July.

Buyers of Cognos' business intelligence and performance management software are typically IT departments, which find that business users are not adopting it fully, said Harriet Fryman, vice president of product marketing for Cognos.

The issue is poor data quality. When users don't trust the underlying data, they tend not to adopt the software tools, Fryman said. Informatica's software analyzes corporate data for duplications, inconsistencies and other problems, and then recommends solutions for eliminating them.

Redwood City, Calif.-based Informatica will be paid on a royalty basis. Cognos' pricing structure for the additional service has not been determined, according to the company.

Cognos had revenue of $999 million in its most recent fiscal year, ended in February. The company reported 9% year-over-year revenue growth for its most recent quarter, ended in May.

Informatica's top line -- $352 million in 2006 -- grew 18% year over year for the first half of 2007.

In supplying data integration software, Informatica competes with IBM(IBM), Business Objects(BOBJ), privately held Infor Global Solutions and Oracle(ORCL).

Cognos also competes with Business Objects and Oracle, which may have been a plus for Informatica. That company has been a Cognos partner for nine years. The companies agreed to raise the level of cooperation on integrating their respective product roadmaps.

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