IBM's agreement to buy Cognos for about $5bn creates more consolidation in the business intelligence market. The deal, which is expected to go through in early 2008, comes in the wake of SAP's offer for Business Objects in October and Oracle's purchase of Hyperion earlier this year.

In a press release, IBM said the acquisition supports its information on demand strategy, an attempt to enable business knowledge to be delivered to a broader set of people across the organisation.

IT directors struggling with the challenges of application integration, and providing knowledge on-demand to key business users, will hope such initiatives bear fruit.

As has been identified in Computing's recent Definitive Guide series, the integration challenge remains huge and will dominate organisations’ investment for the next five to 10 years.

And with a smaller amount of business intelligence vendors to help sort data challenges, IT directors will have to be on their toes as they help secure the best software deal for the company.