The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 19: SAS vs. Cognos or is it SAS & Cognos??

Comparison of user feedback on the two tools for various parameters (compiled from various sources)

Companies with big data crunching groups often end up with a conundrum related to tool selection esp. when making a choice between SAS and Cognos 8. My thoughts on the issue: 

• Issue boils down to Predictive Analytics vs. Descriptive Analytics with each tool a powerhouse in their respective sphere 

• Both can coexist. Rather than it becoming a "SAS vs. Cognos" scenario it can be "SAS and Cognos".

(A scenario which exists at some players: Generally, Cognos used as a data presentation layer that includes descriptive statistics and OLAP. SAS having a substantially more powerful ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) capability, used for data prep processes. Finally, SAS handles the inferential statistics and data mining, including predictive and optimization modeling.

To summarize, SAS used to integrate and perform ETL  on data, Cognos to present the data, then SAS to analytically crunch the data.

The analytical results may then be reported back through Cognos. This whole process can be made to feel seamless. 

Potentially some of the same synergy can be realized by a Cognos-SPSS combination.) 

• Release of Cognos 10 and integration of Cognos-SPSS makes the comparison more difficult as SPSS adds the predictive/statistical analyses capabilities which Cognos was weaker in. On other hand the SAS - Enterprise Guide provides a very analytical user friendly front-end

How have you dealt with your Predictive Analytics vs. Descriptive Analytics dilemma ? Peaceful co-existence or daggers drawn ?