Gerald Cohen Quotations

Unlike traditional application integration vendors and the pure-play BI players, Information Builders has a history of offering an integrated approach to business intelligence and is the only vendor to take an incremental approach to integration. As more and more enterprises are faced with linking critical business applications such as BI, CRM and ERP, the ability to leverage these existing investments will make for more effective application output fit for business use.

Wouldn't it be nice to see a repeat of that?

We're seeing slow but steady improvement in the job market.

Business intelligence is not just about turning data into information, rather organizations need that data to impact how their business operates and responds to the changing marketplace.

Business intelligence continues its proliferation across the enterprise and we have witnessed the evolution as BI has made its way out of the back office and onto the shop floor, the home office, and the sales field. For the past 30 years we have provided customers with cutting-edge technology and innovative strategies to support organizational success. The advent of portable business intelligence builds on our pioneering spirit and commitment to customer requirements.

If stimulus that was passed when the economy was weak takes effect when the economy is on firmer footing, that could be more stimulus than we need.

I think the Fed is on hold tomorrow and for the foreseeable future. We've actually been proponents of the view for quite a while that the economy was going to moderate, and it was important for the Fed to be patient. And one of the dangers was if the Fed kept raising rates, that they would slow the economy a lot more than they would want. So we think that there are enough signs of moderation that the Fed will remain on hold, and we think that signs of moderation will continue. So we think the Fed will be on hold through the end of this year and into early next year.

Part of the program may include relief for states ... so the drag may not be as large from the state side. You definitely will see some drag from the states, offsetting the stimulus from the federal side, but it won't be enough to totally offset the federal side.

That could cause the Fed to raise rates faster.

While the equity market and accounting issues and corporate scandals are weighing on the economy, it is still fundamentally sound. The recovery process hasn't been derailed. We still think the economy is going to grow at about a 3.5-percent pace in the second half -- fast enough to keep the Fed from easing, but not fast enough to cause them to tighten this year.

We believe earnings momentum should turn strongly positive by the second quarter, but earnings gains in 2002 are unlikely to come close to reversing the collapse in 2001.

The decline in inventory suggests that production will start to ramp up and should lead to a pick up in growth going forward.

We're talking about the difference between a little below and a little above, but the number is consistent with the view that we're going to see payrolls flat to lower in August.

The reason it has never surfaced - are you sitting down? - is because it doesn't exist!

What group often combines a keen sense of humor with bad taste? ... College students.

No two periods are ever identical, and we don't expect cars to sprout fins, but we do think that there's a good chance that many of the favorable economic trends of the 1950s will re-emerge in the years immediately ahead.

A self-sustaining recovery depends on job growth. And I think we will get some going forward.

These numbers give you pause. The ISM and the fact that jobless claims continue to rise suggest there continues to be job loss.

The core is up 0.3 percent over the last year, and so there really is no inflation, ... In the first year of recoveries, consumer price inflation tends to fall as it did in the past 40 years. We believe inflation should not be an issue for the foreseeable future.

If prices are rising in response to a pickup in global demand, that's a good sign for the economy. Though it does impart a drag on the economy, you don't feel it as much.

Inventory levels are lean, meaning companies will need to pick up production.

But whether payrolls come in at minus 10,000 or plus 10,000, it won't tell you that much.

Goods prices are deflating and continue to deflate, but services prices are by no means deflating. Overall, prices continue to rise, so I'm not concerned about deflation.

How much freedom I have depends on the number and nature of my options. And that, in turn, depends both on the rules of the game and on the assetts of the players: it is a very important and widely neglected truth that it does not depend on the rules of the game alone.

The Chicago PMI, along with other mixed data we've been getting, points, in my mind, to a turning point, ... But you have to be careful reading too much into this -- it's a survey of 200 firms in the Chicago area with a 50 percent response rate. I think we're at a turning point and will get a rebound, but the strength of that rebound is still in question.

The claims have not been low enough to merit cheering, but the direction has been generally positive, and that's the first step.