BURLINGTON, MA, August 29, 2002—The Mississippi Management and Reporting System, an office of the Department of Finance and Administration for the State of Mississippi, has implemented a business intelligence solution from Cognos (NASDAQ: COGN; TSX: CSN), the world leader in business intelligence (BI). The Cognos solution helps provide access to mission-critical financial data to state government officials from over 100 different agencies.

Cognos BI is a key component of the MERLIN system, a system that supports management decisions for Mississippi state agencies, the executive branch and the Legislature. Mississippi officials use Cognos to report and analyze on key budget and economic data stored in the state's large and complex IBM data warehouse, as well as analyze revenue sources and track expenditure patterns. Cognos also helps build and distribute key financial reports in accordance with GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles).

"With Cognos and IBM we have been able to create a 'one-stop' data shop that meets the complex and diverse requirements of our key stakeholders," said Teresa Hayes, MMRS E-government Team functional manager, State of Mississippi. "We have had tremendous success using Cognos, including improved data accuracy and consistency as well as the ability to create and distribute reports quickly and easily via the Web. The state must comply with strict reporting requirements as mandated by the Office of Fiscal Management — Cognos has allowed us to significantly reduce the manual labor and costs previously associated with that process."

"We use the MERLIN system to generate all financial reports and analysis including GAAP and GASB reporting," said Diane Langham, director, Office of Accounting, Department of Education. "We are now able to reliably and accurately analyze accounts payable data, determine activity volume across our 32 offices, and properly allocate workloads per employee. The MERLIN system has greatly improved the quality and speed of our financial reporting."

"Cognos offers the most secure, scalable, and comprehensive business intelligence solution that meets the complex requirements of our customers' e-Government initiatives," said Dave Laverty, senior vice president, global marketing Cognos. "Cognos software provides user-friendly, zero-footprint Web-based reporting and data retrieval, a critical element to user self-service for e-Government. Constituents can find information and analyze it over the Internet with guaranteed speed and reliability."

About the State of Mississippi, Department of Finance and Administration, Office of the Mississippi Management and Reporting System:
The Mississippi Management and Reporting System (MMRS), established in 1993 under §7-7-3, Mississippi Code of 1972, Annotated, is charged with providing automated delivery of accurate and relevant information to the State's executives and agency managers in a form that is easily manipulated and understood. MMRS is responsible for the State of Mississippi's enterprise budget and accounting systems and enterprise payroll and human resource systems.

The Department of Finance and Administration, as the executive branch agency for fiscal and asset management, provides services, solutions, regulations, and guidance to its customers to help improve the quality of life in Mississippi. For more information, visit the DFA web site at www.dfa.state.ms.us. For more information about Mississippi, please visit Mississippi.gov.