INDUSTRY

Cognos customers from across the world have gathered at Cognos Forum from June 27-30 to hear from leading industry analysts and Cognos customers, partners and senior executives on the latest trends and innovations in business intelligence, enterprise planning and corporate performance management. The event, which is taking place in Orlando, Florida, includes inspiring keynote sessions, powerful case studies, technical how-tos, and hands-on, practical labs to help participants achieve maximum business impact with Cognos, the world leader in enterprise business intelligence (EBI) and corporate performance management solutions. During the conference, Cognos senior executives are discussing strategies for improving and managing performance across organizations using enterprise business intelligence, planning, and scorecarding solutions. This keynote session details: -- Critical strategies and technologies that underpin corporate performance management, and how companies can start realizing the benefits of CPM immediately -- Thoughtful insights gained from the successes of customers and partners -- Innovations in Cognos ReportNet, PowerPlay, Enterprise Planning Series, and Cognos Metrics Manager, and the impact they'll have on organizational performance -- The launch of the Cognos Innovation Center for Performance Management(TM), which has been created to advance the understanding of proven planning and performance management techniques, technologies, and practices -- Powerful benefits of standardizing on a single solution, and keys to a successful standardization initiative -- Exclusive details on Cognos product plans "Every Cognos implementation has the potential to make a powerful impact on the performance of your business," says Rob Ashe, president and chief executive officer. "Cognos Forum helps managers better understand how their Cognos solutions can deliver a richer return and take the performance of your organization to the next level." Over 40 Cognos customers and partners including Dynamic Mutual Funds, Princess Cruises, School District of Palm Beach County, University of Texas at Austin, SAE International, and Bloorview MacMillan Children's Centre will discuss their successful solutions and share their corporate performance management initiatives with conference attendees. Isis Pharmaceuticals, a leading RNA-based drug discovery and development company, is working to standardize its financial reporting through Cognos ReportNet and will discuss their success to date. "We are using Cognos ReportNet to continue to improve the generation, publication and management of our financial reports. The ability to standardize, automate and enhance security controls for report creation and distribution in ReportNet should further streamline our overall financial reporting process," said Linda Yaeger, executive director, Informatics, Isis Pharmaceuticals. "We are pleased with Cognos ReportNet. It has met our expectations for financial reporting and we look forward to the continued development and expansion of our project." Accenture and IBM are the two platinum sponsors of Cognos Forum 2004. Gold sponsors include Cognos partners Deloitte as well as Niteo Partners. "At Accenture, we are dedicated to helping our clients use technology to provide and enhance information access and maximize their business process efficiencies. We are pleased to be a Platinum sponsor of Cognos Forum 2004 and are committed to helping clients make better decisions that can lead to increased revenues, reduced costs, and renewed agility in the marketplace," said Michael Sutcliff, Global Managing Partner of Accenture's Finance and Performance Management Service Line. "Through our partnership with Cognos and continued support of its initiatives, we are enabling clients to achieve a complete view of their organization, gaining critical insight to maximize business efficiency and profitability, resulting in improved corporate performance management." In addition, analysts from AMR Research, Forrester, Gartner, META Group and Ventana Research are participating in a special analyst panel to offer their insights on current trends in Performance Management and debate a broad spectrum of issues, including: -- Standardization -- Enterprise reporting -- Scalability -- Real-time vs. right-time -- Sarbanes-Oxley and corporate governance -- Planning beyond finance -- Enterprise scorecarding -- Data integration -- Emerging technologies and standards In another keynote event, Captain Jerry Linenger, who spent nearly five months aboard the Russian space station Mir during what has been reported to be one of the most dangerous and dramatic missions in space history, discusses his personal approach to challenges and strategies individuals and organizations can use to power their own performance. Cognos Forum 2004 caters to all levels of Cognos users, delivering more than 80 breakout sessions with the largest and richest pool of sessions in Cognos Forum's history. Just prior to Cognos Forum, 336 Cognos Partners met in Orlando June 26-27 for the Cognos Global Partner Summit -- an event that provided partners with the latest information on Cognos solutions, the Cognos vision for Corporate Performance Management, and help in attaining sales objectives. Cognos, the world leader in business intelligence and corporate performance management, delivers software that helps organizations 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 organization wide 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/.