Business intelligence tools vendor Cognos is to buy analytics company Applix for $339m.

The acquisition provides Cognos with extra product muscle in the niche areas of analysing and optimising large and complex sets of financial performance data, profitability analysis and business rules management.

Specifically, it will boost Applix's TM1, a 64-bit, in-memory multidimensional OLAP server.

"Applix will broaden our solution offering and provide Cognos with an innovative, 64-bit, in-memory analytics capability," said Cognos chief executive Rob Ashe.

"It will also bring into the company a very strong employee and customer base that has been committed to performance management through high-impact analytics. "