Burlington, MA, November 14, 2001—GERS Retail Systems, a leading provider of software solutions for the retail industry, today announced its full support for Cognos® Series 7, the industry's most comprehensive, enterprise-class business intelligence solution. Working with Cognos (Nasdaq: COGN; TSE: CSN), the leading global provider of business intelligence solutions, GERS leverages Cognos information access and analysis tools to address the specialized needs of retail decision makers.

A long-standing Cognos channel partner and Cognos Series 7 beta tester, GERS has more than 300 installations worldwide. Customers like Harry Rosen/Hugo Boss, Camping World and Domain Home Fashions use GERS' RetailAnalyst, powered by Cognos, to get closer than ever to customers, reduce operational costs and drive better strategic decision-making in today's competitive retail environment.

"Cognos Series 7 is a tremendous achievement, delivering a dynamic, fully integrated business intelligence solution," said Don Vander Beke, executive vice president of marketing and support, GERS Retail Systems. "With customers in one of the most competitive sectors - retail - we're working with Cognos to enable BI functionality across the entire enterprise, delivering split-second answers to critical business questions. By integrating Cognos Series 7 into our RetailAnalyst solution, we're offering our retail customers unprecedented scalability, an integrated user environment and business information at the right level of detail for their unique requirements."

With GERS' RetailAnalyst suite of business intelligence applications, GERS customers use Cognos today to analyze key business metrics in terms of product sales, store performance, and seasonal trends - providing retailers with the insight to avoid unnecessary discounting, minimize out-of-stocks, maximize floor space, and identify and exploit successful buying patterns. With Cognos NoticeCastT integrated into RetailAnalyst, GERS customers will have a way to spot trends and issues as they happen, and get that information to users in a business-critical timeframe.

"With Cognos Series 7, we are delivering the industry's best breadth and depth across the enterprise and across industries," said Ted Jandl, area vice president of North American channel sales. "For retailers, there has never been a more important time to invest in business intelligence. Today scalability, the broadest range of user choices, and reliability are key. Cognos with GERS delivers."

About GERS Retail Systems:
With over 27 years of experience and 300 installations worldwide, GERS Retail Systems is a leading supplier of software solutions for the retail marketplace. The GERS Electronic Retail Enterprise includes mission-critical transaction management applications for multi-channel retailing, and provides fully integrated corporate office applications for merchandise replenishment and allocation, distribution center management, and financial control. Integral to the GERS solution set are Business Intelligence applications for predictive modeling and decision support, Merchandise Planning and Allocation for increasing returns on inventory investments, and Workflow Automation applications for maximizing productivity across the enterprise. For more information, please visit www.gers.com.