BURLINGTON, Mass., August 14, 2000—National Oilwell (NYSE: NOI), Houston, Texas, today launched "Customer Connect", an online purchasing analysis service powered by Web-based business intelligence software from Cognos^® (Nasdaq:COGN; TSE:CSN), the world's largest and most successful business intelligence company. National Oilwell customers can quickly and easily access and analyze purchasing data with the Cognos-enabled extranet portal, and gain valuable insights into their buying activity. National Oilwell expects the personalized information exchange will improve operational effectiveness, increase customer satisfaction and retention, and be a competitive weapon in the battle for new customers.

National Oilwell is leading the upstream oil and gas industry in providing an online purchasing analysis application to its customers. More than 20 companies are initially accessing "Customer Connect" via National Oilwell's web site, www.natoil.com. National Oilwell is actively introducing this software to numerous other customers. Customers perform sophisticated analysis and reporting of purchasing data by specific attributes such as date, product category, company division, well, rig, lease, project number, and buyer, at Internet speed.

Insights gained from Cognos will solidify National Oilwell customers' understanding of how to plan and forecast expenditures; manage maintenance, repair, and operating (MRO) activities; validate billings; and identify standardization opportunities. Benefits of the Cognos extranet include timeliness (updated daily); security; ease-of-use (Web-based interface, no software downloads); and extensive user-defined querying capabilities.

Cognos has delivered an integrated "end to end" solution for National Oilwell's application, including the extraction of purchasing data from a SAP R/3 Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system and consolidation of the data into a SQL data base. National Oilwell employees and customers interface with "Customer Connect" through Cognos' customizable Upfront portal.

"Technology is a critical, strategic asset in today's marketplace, used to create new business opportunities and differentiate our company from the competition," said Joel Staff, National Oilwell chairman, president and chief executive officer. "The Cognos business intelligence solution has given National Oilwell a new way to interact with our customers and add value for them. We believe Cognos will help drive our top-line growth through customer acquisition, and provide a unique competitive advantage."

Cognos Web-based business intelligence solutions give people throughout an enterprise easy access to information via internal (intranet) and external (extranets) Web networks. Employees, customers and business partners can use the Cognos solution to quickly gain business insights, create new market opportunities, and take decisive actions. Cognos solutions also allows enterprises to share information with customers, suppliers, and partners across the world over secure external Web networks (Extranets) to facilitate more effective business-to-business relationships, enhance customer acquisition and promote greater customer retention.

"Using Internet technology to exchange information with external customers and business partners is a unique way for companies to add new business value to their external relationships and consequently, drive top-line growth," said Joanne K. Masingill, Cognos' senior vice president of marketing. "Cognos has seized leadership of this exploding market, and is ideally positioned to deliver a complete solution that empowers global enterprises to gain immediate business benefits from the Internet."

An online demonstration of Customer Connect is available in the "Your Data" section of the www.natoil.com web site.

About National Oilwell
National Oilwell is a worldwide leader in the design, manufacture and sale of comprehensive systems and components used in oil and gas drilling and production, as well as in providing supply chain integration services to the upstream oil and gas industry.