INDUSTRY

TORONTO, CANADA -- Platform Computing Inc., a leader in distributed computing software, today announced it has become an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) of Cognos(R) (Nasdaq: COGN; TSE: CSN), a leading global provider of business intelligence solutions. Platform will initially OEM Cognos' reporting and analysis solutions, including Cognos PowerPlay (R) and Cognos Upfront (R), to expand the functionality of its enterprise performance management software solutions. Performance Management is an essential element of distributed and Grid computing, enabling an organization to manage, provision and budget for IT assets, resulting in improved productivity and reduced overall cost. With the visibility provided by Platform's solutions, organizations can make more strategic IT decisions at the corporate level, through valuable insight into user, system and application performance across the enterprise. "Through Cognos' business intelligence tools, we can build upon our foundation of proven performance management solutions to help companies understand how their IT investments are directly impacting business success -- from time to market, to time to discovery," said Paul Hill, VP, Marketing, Platform. "This partnership will provide our customers with the analytical insight they need to leverage the full power of their distributed computing investments." "This partnership further emphasizes the enterprise nature of Cognos' reporting and analysis solutions and the value this brings to Platform customers as they implement Grid computing infrastructures," said Ted Jandl, Cognos area vice president of North American channel sales. "In deploying Cognos' solutions, Platform recognizes the business requirement for organizations to more quickly and easily understand the critical factors driving their business." Platform will integrate Cognos PowerPlay, the world's best-selling OLAP (online analytical processing) software in its Performance Management suite. Cognos PowerPlay enables users to explore large volumes of summarized data with sub-second response times in a Web, Windows, or Excel environment. With Cognos PowerPlay, users at any business or technical skill level in a company can perform their own multidimensional analysis, create reports, and share them for better decision-making. Cognos Upfront portal provides end users with a single, Web-based point of personalized access to Cognos business intelligence information and non-business intelligence content. Content delivery and management is centralized and accessible through a customizable interface that can be tailored to the unique needs of different types of users. By supporting end-user publishing of Cognos BI content and other business content, Upfront empowers users to access, create, and share valuable information across an extended organization. For more information visit www.cognos.com or www.platform.com.