Kimball Hill Homes Taps Cognos, Lodestar for Financial Planning

–Home builder standardizes financial processes on Cognos Planning
to reduce budgeting and forecasting cycles for
improved performance management–

CHICAGO— FEI International— May 18, 2005— Cognos (Nasdaq: COGN; TSX: CSN), the world leader in business intelligence and corporate performance management (CPM), today announced that Kimball Hill Homes is standardizing on an enterprise planning solution from Cognos and reseller partner Lodestar Solutions, Inc.

Based in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, Kimball Hill Homes® is a major U.S. homebuilder with revenues of $927 million. Known for its award-winning designs for new homes and neighborhoods in nine states and 14 major markets, the company initially plans to use the Cognos planning solution to increase budgeting and forecasting efficiencies across its finance and land acquisition departments. Treasury is expected to be added to the project later this year.

Kimball Hill Homes wanted improved financial planning to replace a spreadsheet-based system that was used across departments and products and required a lot of time-intensive, manual rework. Cognos Planning offers both a Web browser and a Microsoft Excel interface option for end-user ease-of-use appeal. This allows the company to leverage its spreadsheet systems to initiate plans and then extend the value over time “beyond spreadsheets” to embrace driver-based performance planning that delivers high frequency, high participation, and control.

“We wanted more accurate and meaningful financial information in a more timely fashion with a documented audit trail,” said Anabel Lopez, manager of Financial Planning, Kimball Hill Homes. “Cognos Planning fits our needs and we expect to be able to have a single, consistent view of business plans and forecasts across the organization with a solid return on investment in terms of time savings, reduction of resources required to manage the process and improved reliability.”

Lodestar Solutions, Inc. of Geneva, Illinois supported Kimball Hill Homes and Cognos to prototype models and pilot the solution. Lodestar is a platinum reseller of Cognos Planning, servicing the
mid-west region.

Enterprise planning is a core element of Cognos’ corporate performance management solution. It helps Finance departments define and link the operational drivers for the companies entire planning process, enables broad-based collaboration in planning across organizations, and helps managers make resource allocation decisions in response to changing market conditions quickly and with confidence. The Cognos Planning solution provides customers with an integrated operational and financial view of their business so they can proactively address business challenges for greater operational effectiveness across the organization.

“With Cognos Planning, Kimball Hill Homes will be able to simplify, connect and coordinate its planning efforts to truly reflect its evolving business and accelerate progress towards business goals,” said Doug Barton, vice-president, Product Marketing, Cognos Inc. “Use of the Excel interface allows Kimball Hill Homes to leverage the familiarity of spreadsheets, while dramatically improving plan accuracy and integrity by integrating personal spreadsheets into the enterprise planning environment.”

About Kimball Hill Homes:

About Lodestar Solutions:

About Cognos:

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 23,000 customers in over 135 countries. Cognos enterprise business intelligence and performance management 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.