Cognos adds link to IBM-Yahoo search engine

22.12.2006
Cognos Inc. added a link between its BI search engine and a new joint IBM-Yahoo Inc. search tool that it says will let users gather structured and unstructured data simultaneously. IT executives say that such combined searches can help users more quickly gather the key data needed to make business decisions.

The IBM OmniFind Yahoo Edition, a free entry-level search tool introduced by IBM and Yahoo Inc. on Dec. 13, can index up to 500,000 documents from more than 200 file types, including Adobe Systems Inc.'s PDF and Microsoft Corp.'s Word and Excel, the companies said.

The Cognos 8 Go Search engine, unveiled last spring, can be used to quickly find BI data housed in reports, scorecards and dashboards, the company said.

A new interface in the Cognos tool will allow both engines to be used to conduct a single search.

Joel Silverman, a programming analyst at Alston & Bird LLP, an Atlanta-based law firm and a user of Cognos BI tools, said that support for the free IBM-Yahoo enterprise search tool will help users at the company more quickly gather data from multiple sources.

"The ability to search different sources, such as documents, spreadsheets and intranet sites, would add real value," Silverman said. "If the [new] tool works as simply as an Internet search engine that allows users to scan for data in a multitude of sources and click on links to view the data, that would make our users' work experience more efficient."