for customers to have fewer vendors to deal with, but this raises concerns about integration of the software as more vendors are bought out by the big four. Another challenge is maintaining the same level of customer service. Gartner interprets the lower ratings given in "customer experience" for IBM Cognos and SAP Business Objects as a result of post-acquisition issues. Due to many consolidations in the BI industry, there are only a few independent "pure-play" vendors remaining (SAS and MicroStrategy being the largest). Products On October 26, 2015, at the IBM Insight conference in Las Vegas, IBM leadership announced a redesigned user experience for its flagship Cognos Business Intelligence software. The redesign will be version 11 and an upgrade from Cognos Business Intelligence 10.x. The differentiation in the version 11 release also required renaming to IBM Cognos Analytics, based on the same self-service design principles as Watson Analytics. The redesigned Cognos product also features smarter search that works in-context. On October 25, 2010, at the Business Analytics Forum in Las Vegas, IBM General Manager for Business Analytics and former Cognos CEO Rob Ashe announced IBM Cognos 10. A significant upgrade to IBM Cognos 8 BI, this new software brings together social collaboration and analytics for business users to gain real-time intelligence in a single, user-friendly interface — online or through mobile devices such as iPad, iPhone and BlackBerry devices. IBM Cognos 8 BI, initially launched in September 2005, combined the features of several previous products, including ReportNet, PowerPlay, Metrics Manager, NoticeCast, and DecisionStream. There are also Express and Extended versions of Cognos 8 BI. Full features: Report Studio (Professional report authoring tool formatted for the web) Query Studio (Ad hoc report authoring tool with instant data preview) Analysis Studio (Explore multi-dimensional cube data to answer business questions) Metric Studio (Monitor, analyze, and report on KPIs) Metric Designer (Define, load, and maintain metrics to be available in Metric Studio) Event Studio (Action-based agents to notify decision makers as events happen) Framework Manager (Semantic metadata layer tool which creates models or packages) PowerPlay Studio (formerly PowerPlay Web) Analytic Applications (Packaged BI Applications, built on an adaptable platform and extensible into Business Analytics) IBM Cognos Express, launched in September 2009, is an integrated business intelligence and planning solution purpose-built to meet the needs of midsize companies. The features of Express are: Cognos Express Reporter (Self-service reporting and ad hoc query) Cognos Express Advisor