DALLAS, TX, 2006 EDUCAUSE, October 10, 2006 — Cognos (Nasdaq: COGN; TSX: CSN), the world leader in business intelligence and performance management solutions, today announced that Northwestern University has standardized on Cognos 8 Business Intelligence.

Founded in 1851, Northwestern University is a private research university with a total enrollment of approximately 17,000. Currently, Northwestern manually compiles and shares its financial data in a variety of ways – using a combination of spreadsheets, shadow systems, paper reports, and static reports available on the Web. This leads to problems with timely access to information, mismatches between data sources and difficulty in viewing the data as a strategic resource. In need of a more holistic planning and analysis approach, Northwestern officials needed a solution that could seamlessly integrate into their existing enterprise resource planning environment to deliver strong financial reporting and analysis.

“Complex analytics have been difficult and time consuming, consistent reporting elusive, and budgeting very difficult without BI,” said Jeff Mundt, p roject director of financial systems replacement effort at Northwestern University. “With Cognos 8 BI, Northwestern will now have a solution with robust reporting capabilities. This will allow our decision makers to do complex reports in an easy manner with access to a complete list of self-service reports and analysis methods.”

Cognos 8 BI will ultimately be implemented across the institution – from department administrators who simply need to look at data, to analysts who need metrics such as acceptance rate and budget performance. Tapped into Northwestern’s Oracle/PeopleSoft applications environment in such areas as human resources, payroll, student administration and finance, Cognos 8 BI will facilitate greater visibility into institutional performance, stronger collaboration among departments and allow better enterprise-wide decision making. Cognos 8 BI is a groundbreaking product that provides decision makers at all levels of the enterprise with a consistent, accurate view of information to better manage performance. As a single product that easily integrates into existing infrastructures with multiple systems and data sources, Cognos 8 BI is a robust technology foundation for BI standardization and corporate performance management.

"Universities face a unique set of business challenges and have a pressing need for better access to the information in multiple systems distributed across the institution. By synchronizing these silos of data and providing decision makers with the powerful lens of Cognos 8 BI, Northwestern will be able to obtain a holistic view of the institution. With such consistency, timeliness and accuracy of information, the University will be able to better deliver success for both its staff and students," said Terence Atkinson, director of government and education solutions at Cognos. "Cognos 8 BI allows educational institutions at all levels to effectively leverage information to help evaluate and monitor performance of students, staff, and curriculum, distribute resources for greatest impact, and retain fiscal accountability."

Cognos is a recognized leader in delivering performance management solutions for colleges and universities. Over 1,000 higher education institutions worldwide use Cognos, including Southern Methodist University, The George Washington University, University of Minnesota, University of Toronto, University of Ulster (Ireland) and University of Wollongong (Australia). For more information about Cognos solutions for higher education, please visit http://www.cognos.com/solutions/industry/education/higher.html.

NOTE TO EDITORS: Cognos will also be showcasing its solutions for PeopleSoft, Oracle eBusiness Suite, Siebel and JD Edwards at the Oracle OpenWorld Conference, October 22-26, 2006 in San Francisco, Booth # 1424, Moscone South.

ABOUT NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY:

Northwestern University is a private institution founded in 1851 to serve the Northwest Territory, an area that now includes the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota.

Northwestern is recognized both nationally and internationally for the quality of its educational programs at all levels. U.S. News & World Report consistently ranks the University's undergraduate programs among the best in the country. Among graduate programs, the Kellogg School of Management regularly ranks among the top five business schools in the United States for both its traditional curriculum and its executive master's program. U.S. News & World Report placed Northwestern's School of Law in the top 10 legal programs nationally and the Feinberg School of Medicine in the top 20 medical programs. In its most recent assessment of doctoral programs, the National Research Council ranked five Northwestern programs in the top 10 percent nationally and ten programs in the top 25 percent. For more information, visit the Northwestern University Web site at http://www.northwestern.edu

ABOUT COGNOS:

Cognos, the world leader in business intelligence and performance management solutions, provides world-class enterprise planning and BI software and services to help companies plan, understand and manage financial and operational performance.

Cognos brings together technology, analytical applications, best practices, and a broad network of partners to give customers a complete performance system. The Cognos performance system is an open and adaptive solution that leverages an organization’s ERP, packaged applications, and database investments. It gives customers the ability to answer the questions -- How are we doing? Why are we on or off track? What should we do about it? – and enables them to understand and monitor current performance while planning future business strategies.

Cognos serves more than 23,000 customers in more than 135 countries, and its top 100 enterprise customers consistently outperform market indexes. Cognos 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.