The Ottawa Board of Trade named Cognos Company of the Year at its annual Business Achievement Awards. Nominated by the University of Ottawa and beating out 42 finalists, Cognos was recognized for its commitment to educational programs, community events, and helping the university raise more than $23 million for information technology and education programs. Students who worked at Cognos were treated professionally, were given high-end projects to work on, and returned to campus endorsing Cognos’ strong team atmosphere and supportive learning environment, according to Gilles Patry, University of Ottawa’s academic vice rector. In addition, Whitbread, one of the world’s largest brewers and leisure companies, awarded Cognos with its Supplier of the Year award for outstanding service and support. Cognos products are the core technology within Whitbread’s Project Samson, a Business Intelligence application launched earlier this year. Whitbread replaced more than 3000 legacy system reports, integrated OLAP with its data warehouse, and supported more than 250 remote users in the last year. Whitbread operates some of the United Kingdom’s most popular pubs and produces Heineken, Boddingtons, Murphys, and Stella Artois beers.
