Daptiv taps Cognos for business intelligence functionality

Won over by its Web-based architecture, Seattle-based Daptiv Inc. has selected Cognos technology as the business intelligence (BI) framework for its new project management platform.

Formerly known as eProject, Daptiv’s flagship product is Daptiv PPM (project and portfolio management), an on demand SaaS-delivered solution designed to streamline day-to-day employee interaction and collaboration.

Tim Low, Daptiv’s vice-president of marketing, says as a SaaS vendor the company has built Daptiv PPM via a classic build by partner approach. The two priorities for Daptiv in selecting a BI partner were time to market and architecture; they wanted to maintain their cost structure and the other benefits inherent in being a SaaS vendor. Low says Cognos fit the bill on both counts.

“We felt because of their Web architecture we could implement them in the time frame that was important to our business,” said Low.

Daptiv did consider other vendors that also presented very rich and capable functionality, said Low, but they had other downsides.

“One of those vendors has quite a mixed backend as a result of acquisitions, and quite frankly that added level of complexity is probably what tipped the scales in Cognos’ favour,” said Low.

On the same day Daptiv and Cognos announced their partnership; IBM also announced its acquisition of the Ottawa-based BI vendor. Low says he doesn’t have any concerns the Cognos acquisition by IBM will impact Daptiv’s partnership with the vendor.

“We’ve already been informed by them things will operate in very much the same vein as they have for the foreseeable future with IBM,” said Low. “Of course we understand there may very well be some changes, but our relationship with them is a long-term one.”

SaaS is a very fast growing area for Cognos says Jennifer Francis, vice-president of market development with the vendor, adding it’s also the fastest growing area of their ISV channel. Most of the new partners working with Cognos are SaaS partners, and many current partners are adding SaaS to their solution offerings.

“This is now the fastest growing area of our business in the partner channel,” said Francis.

She attributes Cognos’ success in the SaaS arena to the purely Web-based architecture of the Cognos 8 portfolio, which she says allows partners to determine the capabilities they want to offer their customers through a hosted SaaS model. Partners have the option of developing a solution ranging from front end-clients where customers manage their own reports all the way to scheduled embedded reports within their offerings.

“We work with the partner on the right pricing model, depending on the partner offering, and how the partner is pricing and managing,” said Francis. “We do subscription pricing and we do application pricing with our partners so our pricing model fits with their pricing model to their customers.”

While Cognos has moved to a totally Web-based architecture many of Cognos’ competitors, says Francis, still have a mix of Windows and Web components.

“In Daptiv’s previous solution, they had to send Windows authoring components to their customers in order to do the BI reporting on their solutions, and they wanted to move to a pure managed-SaaS model,” said Francis. “With Cognos they were able to do that.”

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Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

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Jeff Jedras
Jeff Jedras
A veteran technology and business journalist, Jeff Jedras began his career in technology journalism in the late 1990s, covering the booming (and later busting) Ottawa technology sector for Silicon Valley North and the Ottawa Business Journal, as well as everything from municipal politics to real estate. He later covered the technology scene in Vancouver before joining IT World Canada in Toronto in 2005, covering enterprise IT for ComputerWorld Canada. He would go on to cover the channel as an assistant editor with CDN. His writing has appeared in the Vancouver Sun, the Ottawa Citizen and a wide range of industry trade publications.

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