Cognos and Plumtree to Deliver Dashboard and Scorecarding Applications for the Enterprise Web
Application Prototype Debuts at Plumtree's User Conference, Odyssey 2003
HOLLYWOOD, FL., Plumtree Odyssey User Conference, Oct. 13, 2003Enterprise Web leader Plumtree Software (Nasdaq: PLUM) and Cognos (Nasdaq: COGN; TSX: CSN), the world leader in business intelligence (BI) and corporate performance management, today announced an alliance to deliver comprehensive dashboard and scorecarding applications for the Enterprise Web. Powered by Cognos Metrics Manager, Cognos' industry-leading scorecarding solution, and Plumtree's Enterprise Web Suite, the planned applications give organizations a unified, contextual view of key performance and financial indicators from across the enterprise. The Cognos-Plumtree applications are designed to help organizations actively monitor performance, respond more quickly to new opportunities, and gain competitive advantage.
Plumtree and Cognos are presently co-developing the solution and hope to release it as a product offering by early in 2004. Karen Williams, vice president of product marketing at Cognos will unveil a prototype of the application at Plumtree's user conference, Odyssey 2003 as part of Plumtree's Enterprise Applications Launch.
"Our campaign against the empty portal has culminated in a program to fill up the Enterprise Web with applications, data, and services from all over an organization to give business audiences everything they need to their jobs in one place," said Plumtree CEO John Kunze. "To do that, we're aligning with leading application vendors such as Cognos. The executive dashboard idea gives managers and executive's a bird's-eye view of their business, with the ability to drill down into problem areas."
"The true value of scorecards is having the entire workforce focused on what the leaders have determined is strategic," said Dave Laverty, senior vice president of global marketing, Cognos. "We believe that dashboards are one of many business intelligence-driven applications being deployed within the enterprise and that Plumtree's Enterprise Web software provides a framework for delivering these applications to large audiences quickly, and at low cost."
Plumtree-Cognos Executive Dashboard and Scorecarding Applications
The anticipated Plumtree-Cognos applications combine the performance management capabilities of Cognos' Metrics Manager with other information, data and services available through the Enterprise Web. The goal is to enable an executive to log-in to one Enterprise Web site and access not just an executive dashboard or scorecard, but all the other Web applications he or she needs to run the business, avoiding the cost and hassle of separate sites with separate security.
A typical dashboard could include:
- Balanced Scorecard and Six Sigma metrics from Cognos Metrics Manager or other systems;
- Sales bookings and forecasts;
- Monthly close data contrasted with plan;
- Marketing programs results and costs;
- Upcoming company events and press releases;
- Company announcements;
- Customer call center queues and satisfaction data;
- Research and development schedules;
- Inventory levels and manufacturing production updates;
- Competitive intelligence briefing, with news articles and analyses;
- Systems availability and up-time statistics; and
- Employee attrition rates and training schedules.
To incorporate services from Cognos products into the Enterprise Web, Plumtree relies on a set of industry-standard portlets and an entire range of integration Web services that Plumtree has created for federating searches, synchronizing with user and group security, identifying and indexing content, and creating a common user profile. The executive dashboard and scorecarding applications will be designed to take advantage of the new capabilities of the Plumtree Enterprise Web Suite for supporting a volume and variety of Web applications, each with its own brand, security and administration.
About Enterprise Web Applications
Enterprise Web applications are applications hosted on different application servers, but managed within one framework. Enterprise Web applications differ from traditional applications in three ways. First Enterprise Web applications combine existing data and processes from diverse enterprise systems with new shared services, providing greater efficiencies from assets. Second, Enterprise Web applications are assembled dynamically, incorporating new capabilities on the fly, allowing for greater agility in solving business problems. Finally, Enterprise Web applications are designed to be integrated into an enterprise-wide environment, providing greater economies of scale: users can easily navigate between or search across applications, and Web services developed for one Enterprise Web application can be re-used as-is in other applications. Prospective partners interested in building these applications can register for Plumtree's applications partner program, at www.plumtree.com/partners.
About Plumtree Software
Plumtree Software is the Enterprise Web leader. Plumtree's mission is to create a comprehensive Web environment for employees, customers and partners across the enterprise to interact with a wide range of Web applications. Plumtree's Enterprise Web solution consists of integration products for bringing resources from traditional systems together on the Web, shared services such as collaboration, content management and search for building new Web applications, and an application management framework for delivering these Web applications to broad audiences. Plumtree's independence and its Web Services Architecture allow this solution to span rival application servers, helping to maximize customers' return on their existing technology investments. With offices in more than a dozen countries, Plumtree has licensed over 550 customers, including Boeing, Ford Motor Company, Procter & Gamble and the U.S. Navy.

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This is not an offer to sell any product or service. Interested parties should not rely upon any preliminary descriptions of the products described herein prior to their commercial release. The anticipated timing, features, and technical specifications described are subject to change without notice. There can be no assurance that the products will commercially release at all. When and if available for commercial release, these products will only be licensed per vendors' approved terms and conditions. No rights or license is granted hereby to any person or entity.
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