The last of the large BI acquisition dominoes fell today when IBM announced it’s intention to acquire Cognos for just short of $5b. With Hyperion and Business Objects getting snapped-up by Oracle and SAP respectively, Microsoft "trying" to march its way into BI/Performance Management, and rumors of a Cognos/IBM deal floating around since last year, most of the industry yawned and wondered what took so long for these guys to get to the alter.

From a marriage standpoint, the fit actually seems natural to me and I think its a good thing for both companies’ customers. These guys have been partners for a long time and the product portfolios compliment nicely with little overlap. This one should also keep the IBM Global Services guys raking in cash for awhile.

As far as what that means for the BI industry as a whole, it opens the door for the maturing open source market to prove itself. There is still a growing market in the SMB and with very few established stand alone, truly agnostic players left, this creates a window for guys like Pentaho and Jaspersoft to walk in and plant their flags.