IBM's Cognos business intelligence (BI) subsidiary has updated its flagship reporting tool to make it more interactive and informative for users.

Cognos 8 v4 and its out-of-the-box Cognos Now! version contain new features, including a customisable dashboard, location intelligence for mobile workers and BI search capabilities.

"Employees and executive management within all sizes of organisations are challenged to improve business efficiency through the strategic use of information, but they do not have the time or resources to sift through mountains of information to pinpoint what is relevant," said Peter Griffiths, Cognos Global Products vice president.

The dashboard will deliver Flash-based graphics to allow business users to personalise their view. Users will also be able to add external widgets such as RSS feeds or pre-built reports.

Cognos 8 Go! Mobile has been enhanced to allow users to access all their BI applications via mobile phone. Additional location-based BI capabilities will use GPS systems on BlackBerry, Symbian or Windows Mobile devices to update reports on their current location.

The Cognos mobile update follows an announcement from IBM's Lotus division that it will launch new Notes software for the iPhone, as well as a SAP announcement which expressed hopes to extend its partnership with Research In Motion (RIM) to other mobile operators. The RIM partnership allows users to view SAP applications on their BlackBerrys.

New BI search capabilities added to Cognos 8 Go! Search v4 allow users to search both structured and unstructured information. It works with popular enterprise search applications, such as IBM OmniFind Enterprise Edition, Google, Yahoo and Autonomy.

"Both the business and IT gain more autonomy whether employees are in the office searching, monitoring and analysing business outcomes, or on the road looking for new business updates or geographically relevant information," said Leah MacMillan, Cognos product marketing vice president, in a statement.

Users will also be able to add their thoughts, decisions and comments to the BI reports in order to provide business reviewers with more insight into corporate information.