EDUCAUSE 2004, DENVER, COLORADO, October 20, 2004—Cognos (NASDAQ: COGN; TSX: CSN), the world leader in business intelligence (BI) and corporate performance management, today announced that Cognos' industry-leading solutions are driving best-in-class performance at some of the world's most innovative higher education institutions. Cognos will be showcasing these solutions through its participation at EDUCAUSE 2004 from October 19th - 22nd in Denver, Colorado (Booth 546).

An institution of higher education has a lot of information to collect and track. A large university can easily have tens of thousands of students, hundreds of thousands of alumni, and operating budgets in hundreds of millions of dollars. With Cognos, universities and colleges can manage and analyze data quickly and efficiently. They can modify management of advancements, because the university depends on that revenue, working more effectively with alumni. They can track student recruiting, admissions, and funding and improve financial performance organization-wide - tracking down to the last dollar, and more importantly, knowing what impact each dollar has. Universities and colleges can also analyze activities and results, understand costs and value, and compare what they are achieving against what they have set out to do.

Cognos solutions can help higher education customers improve management in a number of key areas, including: advancements and alumni relations; student management, including recruiting, admissions, and aid; financial performance; and organizational performance. Among the many higher education customers worldwide using Cognos for managing best-in-class performance are Penn State University, The George Washington University, Washington University School of Medicine, University of Toronto, Idaho State University, University of Texas at Austin, Stanford University, University of Minnesota, and DeVry Inc.

Leading educational institutions that have selected Cognos for managing performance include:

The George Washington University:
The George Washington University (GW) is the largest higher education institution in the U.S. Capital. With 20,000 undergraduate and graduate students, GW collects and processes vast quantities of student (both undergraduate and graduate enrollment and registration), financial, and human resources data. GW needed a technology solution that would aggregate data from multiple sources and allow users to efficiently report and analyze that information.

"Using Cognos has enabled GW to create a self-serve environment that promotes data accessibility and data exchange among our many departments," said Robyn East, Executive Director of Administrative Applications, GW. "We can generate real-time reports that can be customized for our end users in a fraction of the time and with minimal IT involvement. The Cognos BI solution is scalable and secure and lets us use our collected data assets for maximum benefit."

Penn State:
Over 1000 employees at Penn State are using Cognos to report on and analyze student and administrative data, including alumni, development, Graduate School, human resources, enrollment, budget, and undergraduate admissions. With Cognos, employees have instant access to information and the ability to 'slice and dice' information to spot trends. Cognos is also used by the Graduate School to report back to state and federal organizations that provide funding for programs. For example, the National Science Foundation requires data on programs, gender and minority populations in order to fulfill grant applications.

"The size and diversity of Penn State demanded a business intelligence solution that could bring together data from all aspects of university administration and student life and make information accessible and usable by our employees," said Gary Augustson, Vice Provost, Information Technology, Pennsylvania State University. "With Cognos, we have a powerful reporting and analysis solution that is helping us to increase efficiencies and recognize cost-saving opportunities across departments."

The University of Texas at Austin:
With one of the largest single-campus enrollment levels and one of the largest graduate schools in the nation, The University of Texas at Austin generates vast amounts of student, academic, research, and financial data. With a business intelligence solution from Cognos, officials have critical insight into funding trends, research grants, academic planning processes, and fundraising initiatives. The university has deployed Cognos EBI solutions in subject areas such as admissions, financials, human resources, research contracts and grants, capital campaign information, and facilities management.

"One of the goals of the project is to allow university leaders to be able to easily access information to make informed, business decisions," said Cathy Lester, associate director and project IQ director, The University of Texas at Austin. "Our deans want to compare academic performance, semester credit hours to instructional salaries, and positions, both within and across our 15 colleges, and to peer institutions globally."

"Business intelligence, with well-integrated data, can also give us a 360 degree perspective on a topic. For example, universities cultivate corporate relationships via donations, scholarships, career services, research contracts and grants, visiting lecturers, purchasing, and so on. With solutions like Cognos we can begin to develop an easier way to analyze and trend these complex relationships," added Lester.

"Educational institutions are under continual pressure to find innovative, yet cost-effective ways to organize, use, and share information to strengthen competitive advantage and improve the services they deliver to students," said Terence Atkinson, director of public sector solutions, Cognos. "Cognos' solutions allow educational institutions at all levels to effectively use information in order to allocate resources for maximum impact, assess and monitor performance of students and staff, and maintain fiscal responsibility."

ABOUT COGNOS:
Cognos, the world leader in business intelligence and corporate performance management, delivers software that helps companies drive, monitor and understand corporate performance.

Cognos delivers the next level of competitive advantage - Corporate Performance Management (CPM) - achieved through the strategic application of BI on an enterprise scale. Our integrated CPM solution helps customers drive performance through planning; monitor performance through scorecarding; and understand performance through business intelligence.

Cognos serves more than 22,000 customers in over 135 countries. Cognos enterprise business intelligence solutions and services are also available from more than 3,000 worldwide partners and resellers. For more information, visit the Cognos Web site at http://www.cognos.com.