Cognos and IBM on March 7 announced a new strategic alliance to jointly develop, market and sell service-oriented architecture products.

Under the agreement, Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM will increase its Cognos consulting capabilities, and Burlington, Mass.-based Cognos will optimize its business intelligence products for IBM hardware, software and services, officials for the companies said. Cognos will also market IBM's WebSphere and information management technologies as part of the preferred reference architecture for the Cognos 8 Special Edition BI solution.

Cognos and IBM will develop and market new vertical offerings to help customers deploy SOA-based products, officials said. The first verticals include the insurance and public sector markets.

"Today's announcement further illustrates IBM's commitment to helping our clients deliver innovative solutions that solve their industry-specific business challenges. Combining Cognos' industry-leading applications with IBM's open technology and services expertise, will help organizations increase efficiencies and gain a faster return on their investment," said Mark Hanny, vice president of Strategic Alliances at IBM, in a statement.

Click here to read more about IBM's SOA portfolio.

"We've had great success working with Cognos and IBM," said Chris Framel, applications group manager for the City of Albuquerque, New Mexico, in a statement. "Cognos gives us powerful new tools to help us keep our municipal departments and residents informed on public safety and operational issues through our 24/7 extranet. Its open, distributed architecture works seamlessly on our existing IBM technology infrastructure ...."

This article was originally published on eWEEK.com.