It was officially announced last week that IBM was taking drastic action to simplify their IBM Cognos Licensing. The majority of the changes will affect Cognos BI users. But, unlike previous attempts to simplify the licensing (which only affected new customers), this change will be applied to existing Cognos customers. So, if you have Cognos BI, LISTEN UP! THIS AFFECTS YOU!

I took a few hours to analyze the announced changes and, although I still have questions on how they will handle unique situations, here it is in a nutshell.

IBM is streamlining to 6 main licenses for BI. Most existing clients will only need to focus on their BI Analytics Admin, BI Analytics Explorer and BI Analytics User. If you are current on support in Passport Advantage, the support renewal team will be magically morphing your existing licenses into the new structure. So, when you open your support renewal and are completely confused because the licensing names changed, you will know why.

After careful analysis of the old and new licensing structure, I have to say, “Holy BEEP! This is awesome for our clients.” You see, in their effort to simplify the licenses, IBM could not take away functionality you purchased, so they could only increase your functionality to get you into one of the 6 BI licenses. Here’s an example: the Enhanced Consumer license you own now will be a BI Analytics User with all the functionality of an Enhanced Consumer, plus Cognos Insight, Workspace Advanced, Report Studio, Event Studio, Query Studio, and Analysis Studio. Yes, you heard me correctly, your end users now have tons of functionality. I realize that you may not want them to have all that functionality, so you can restrict it.

Lodestar Solutions hosted two live webinars of, “Decoding the New IBM Licensing and What it Means to You” and we have posted the recording of this webinar on our YouTube page. Click HERE to view.

If you are a current IBM Cognos client and would like Lodestar to provide you with a free review of your licenses and functionality, email sales@LodestarSolutions.com and we will be happy to schedule a one-on-one session.