The first step, she says, is providing their customers with enhanced and optimized analytic capabilities supporting their applications. "Second is to augment the current offerings of the Cognos product suite in the areas of planning, budgeting, consolidation and new areas such as profitability," says Wilhide. "And third, to continue and enhance the TM1 solution, honoring existing development roadmaps as they unfold the integration plan and articulate a vision for a broader set of applications."

All well and good, say consultants–but will these plans play nicely with those of IBM Corp., which is in the process of acquiring Cognos for $5 billion? Cognos remains mum on the subject. "Those merger and integration plans are being laid right now," explains Barton. "We can't comment."

Cognos isn't the only business software company dodging questions about long-term plans. With the BPM landscape in constant flux, it's hard to predict the future for any of the big players.

After all, Cognos is just the latest in a series of companies to give into consolidation. Earlier, SAP AG scooped up Business Objects and Oracle acquired Hyperion. And there's no end in sight, says Lee Dittmar, a Deloitte Consulting LLP partner and head of the enterprise governance practice. "I wouldn't be surprised to see a different deal every month for the next 18 months as the giants fill out their industry dance cards," says Dittmar.

Another unanswered question for now, is how the consolidation trend will affect corporate buying decisions. Many customers have gotten used to picking and choosing bits from different suppliers and melding them in a unique enterprise system. But now, with one-stop shopping for complete systems, will finance executives let the suppliers integrate complete systems for them? Dittmar, for one, thinks customers should let the experts do the legwork. After all, he says, "we all use phones. But do we all want to make them?"

Cognos CEO Rob Ashe thinks not. "Our goal now is to set the market pace with a complete performance management system that enables both operational and financial performance management, underpinned with a market leading business intelligence solution."

With the same goal in mind, SAS Institute Inc., the last big independent business software company, hopes to add customers as the giants rationalize product lines with their new units. "For at least 12 months, they will be distracted," says Gaurav Verma, global marketing manager for SAS's enterprise intelligence area. Paul Hamerman, business process and applications vice president for Forrester Research Inc., agrees. "It may be tough for some customers who want to make sure that whatever they buy will be supported in the future," he says.

Ultimately, though says Dittmar, it's just this confusion that will create a "sea change" in buying decisions.

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It's All in the Follow-Through

Axentis has introduced a document approval update to its governance, risk and compliance (GRC) enterprise suite. The new module streamlines, automates and formalizes a process for creating and maintaining key documents. It's expected to play a key role in generating and distributing critical policies and procedures statements, says Roger Bottum, Axentis vice president of marketing and product management. "It enables users to communicate new policies or changes to existing ones to the right people–and repeat [the alerts] until the recipient acknowledges that he has read and understands the message," says Bottum. So instead of just e-mailing important documents to employees, business partners or customers the traditional way and hope the addressee reviews the information, the Axentis module provides the follow-through to guarantee that they do. It also automatically sends surveys to measure employee understanding.

This is especially important, says Bottum, at a time when failure to comply with corporate ethics and compliance procedures and government regulations can mean big trouble for the company and a pink slip for the errant employee. And, according to a recent survey by the Ethics Resource Center, 60% of the respondents aren't even aware of their employer's ethics policies. "Controls and risk practices mean nothing if people are not aware of them," says Michael Rasmussen, president of newly created Corporate Integrity LLC.

Built upon a software as a service (SaaS) model, Axentis Enterprise can immediately serve up the new capabilities to Axentis users, without requiring IT resources, enabling faster integration into a company's daily GRC program, says Bottum.

Axentis brings to market a new system that checks up on your company's checks and balances–and gives you the documentation to prove it