John Daniel Associates has been awarded Platinum Reseller Partner status, from Cognos Corporation for the 5th consecutive year. This award recognizes John Daniel Associates' distinction in delivery of the Cognos Corporate Performance Management Solution and exceptional sales performance.

American Eagle Outfitters (NASDAQ: AEOS), a leading lifestyle retailer in North America, has standardized on a Cognos business intelligence (BI) solution implemented by Cognos Pinnacle Partner John Daniel Associates.

Cognos claims that its new reporting tool, ReportNet, will fill the needs of most corporate users. ReportNet combines features that until now were found separately in several Cognos offerings, integrators said. In the upcoming product, those features are integrated and built on top of a new Web-based foundation.

Added Dan Volitich, president of John Daniel Associates, a Pittsburgh-based solution provider and Cognos partner: "Cognos pitches this [product] as being scalable to tens of thousands of users, but as a midmarket partner, we're more impressed that it's much more efficient and better-performing [than its predecessor]. It lets us quickly build more complex reports much faster than with Impromptu and even reports [deriving from] different data sources. It also has a very nice metadata store that IT folks will love."

New performance management tools are promising to give companies a better read on how they're managing their systems and data.

Dan Volitich, president of John Daniel Associates, a Pittsburgh-based solution provider, said Metrics Manager enables partners that are deploying analytics and business intelligence solutions to offer customers even more functionality. "The training curve is extremely simple," he said. "They've done a nice job defining the click path and making it easy for folks with little training to get value out of the product."

"The IT business software and services markets are consolidating, going global and looking to develop strategic partnerships to reach new markets and broaden their footprint," said Karen Smith, research director at Boston-based Aberdeen Group.

Dan Volitich, president of John Daniel, a large Pittsburgh-based Cognos partner, said Adaytum's EPP expertise augments and expands Cognos' prior capabilities.

"This is complimentary. It helps with [Cognos'] breadth," he said. However, he characterized Business Objects' recent move to purchase reporting software vendor Crystal Decisions as less commonsensical. "If you look at [that deal], that's a market-share acquisition. If you're a Business Objects or a Crystal customer, you've got to be wondering which products will survive," he said.