BURLINGTON, MA, June 9, 2004- Cognos the world leader in EBI and corporate performance management solutions, today announced a significant deal with TIES, an education and technology consortium that represents over 400 schools. TIES purchased the Cognos EBI solution, including Cognos ReportNet and Cognos PowerPlay, and will work with Cognos to deliver student performance management solutions to K-12 school districts in Minnesota.

Working with Cognos Professional Services, Cognos and TIES will offer a performance management solution that includes over 150 pre-built reports for addressing the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 (NCLB). The NCLB act was implemented to hold states and schools accountable for the academic achievement of all students, and to demand continuous performance improvement from students and teachers.

The TIES and Cognos solution will enable superintendents, principals, teachers and other administrators to analyze and report on student data and receive alerts on pre-determined metrics. Authorized users will be able to look at data multidimensionally with Cognos PowerPlay, drawing information from a central data warehouse, and can analyze and create reports on a number of areas including student performance, test results, curriculum management, attendance and absence reporting, and aggregated performance reviews. These abilities will enable educators to easily identify children who are falling behind, and to empower schools to take specific actions without having to wait for a formal report card to indicate where students are struggling academically.

In addition, school administrators will use Cognos ReportNet for operational and ad-hoc reporting on financial, human resources, and payroll data. Quicker and easier access to information, coupled with the ability to analyze across dimensions will enable schools to examine different aspects of organization performance and how it relates back to student success.

"TIES evaluated several other business intelligence vendors, but after close scrutiny we feel strongly that Cognos has the best solution for our market," said Betty Schweizer, TIES co-executive director. "By leveraging TIES' deep expertise in K-12 education with the powerful reporting, analysis and scorecarding capabilities of the Cognos EBI solution, educators can better understand the driving factors behind student performance and take action at the stage where they can have maximum impact. In addition, we are offering schools a practical solution that meets the information needs of the No Child Left Behind act, legislation that affects all our school districts."

"We are very pleased to be working with TIES on this important initiative and to continue to broaden our reach in the K-12 market," said Terence Atkinson, director of public sector solutions, Cognos. "TIES has the extensive industry expertise needed to address the student performance challenges faced by school districts in the United States and selecting Cognos is a clear indication of the significant competitive advantage our solution offers to K-12 organizations."

About TIES:

TIES, an education technology consortium of 37 Minnesota school districts, provides integrated SIS, finance, and human resource systems. Designed by its members, TIES web-based SIS (TSIS) is one of the most complete systems on the market, incorporating census, health, transportation, IEP, parent access, grade book, test and assessment data, and more. TIES is also one of the largest education technology trainers in the country. For more information about TIES, go to www.ties.k12.mn.us.

###

Cognos and the Cognos logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cognos Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Kathy Guthrie 
TIES Communications Director
1667 Snelling Ave. N. 
St. Paul, MN 55108-2131 
651-999-6051

www.ties.k12.mn.us