Cognos.

• Position: BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

Cognos, a leading provider of business intelligence (BI) software, has introduced Cognos 8 BI, which the company says is a first-of-its-kind solution that eliminates the need for "suites" by placing a single BI product on a single, Web-based service-oriented architecture.

Cognos representatives said that the new product had been beta-tested at 100 companies and further refined following a users' conference in June. They say the product fully supports a variety of standard platforms--Unix, Windows and Linux.

Among the new features, Cognos says, the new release offers users:

* more flexible portal creation

* enhanced self-service reporting

* dimensional reporting

* dynamic dashboards

* deep, comparative analysis

* actionable scorecards

* advanced event management

Unlike competitors' offerings, Cognos says, Cognos 8 BI eliminates the need for multiple metadata layers and different query engines. The single query and the single metadata layers provide for more consistent results, it adds.

The product offers enhanced ability to create individualized portals, or "portlets," that provide for alerts, metrics, images and other features, all with improved capability to search and navigate. This...